It was a soft, reposeful summer landscape, as lovely as a dream,

and as lonesome as Sunday. The air was full of the smell of

flowers, and the buzzing of insects, and the twittering of birds,

and there were no people, no wagons, there was no stir of life,

nothing going on. The road was mainly a winding path with hoof-prints

in it, and now and then a faint trace of wheels on either side in

the grass--wheels that apparently had a tire as broad as one's hand.

Presently a fair slip of a girl, about ten years old, with a cataract

of golden hair streaming down over her shoulders, came along.

Around her head she wore a hoop of flame-red poppies. It was as

sweet an outfit as ever I saw, what there was of it. She walked

indolently along, with a mind at rest, its peace reflected in her

innocent face. The circus man paid no attention to her; didn't

even seem to see her. And she--she was no more startled at his

fantastic make-up than if she was used to his like every day of

her life. She was going by as indifferently as she might have gone

by a couple of cows; but when she happened to notice me, _then_

there was a change! Up went her hands, and she was turned to stone;

her mouth dropped open, her eyes stared wide and timorously, she

was the picture of astonished curiosity touched with fear. And

there she stood gazing, in a sort of stupefied fascination, till

we turned a corner of the wood and were lost to her view. That

she should be startled at me instead of at the other man, was too

many for me; I couldn't make head or tail of it. And that she

should seem to consider me a spectacle, and totally overlook her

own merits in that respect, was another puzzling thing, and a

display of magnanimity, too, that was surprising in one so young.

There was food for thought here. I moved along as one in a dream.

As we approached the town, signs of life began to appear. At

intervals we passed a wretched cabin, with a thatched roof, and

about it small fields and garden patches in an indifferent state of

cultivation. There were people, too; brawny men, with long, coarse,

uncombed hair that hung down over their faces and made them look

like animals. They and the women, as a rule, wore a coarse

tow-linen robe that came well below the knee, and a rude sort of

sandal, and many wore an iron collar. The small boys and girls

were always naked; but nobody seemed to know it. All of these

people stared at me, talked about me, ran into the huts and fetched

out their families to gape at me; but nobody ever noticed that

other fellow, except to make him humble salutation and get no

response for their pains.

In the town were some substantial windowless houses of stone

scattered among a wilderness of thatched cabins; the streets were

mere crooked alleys, and unpaved; troops of dogs and nude children

played in the sun and made life and noise; hogs roamed and rooted

contentedly about, and one of them lay in a reeking wallow in

the middle of the main thoroughfare and suckled her family.

Presently there was a distant blare of military music; it came

nearer, still nearer, and soon a noble cavalcade wound into view,

glorious with plumed helmets and flashing mail and flaunting banners

and rich doublets and horse-cloths and gilded spearheads; and

through the muck and swine, and naked brats, and joyous dogs, and

shabby huts, it took its gallant way, and in its wake we followed.

Followed through one winding alley and then another,--and climbing,

always climbing--till at last we gained the breezy height where

the huge castle stood. There was an exchange of bugle blasts;

then a parley from the walls, where men-at-arms, in hauberk and

morion, marched back and forth with halberd at shoulder under

flapping banners with the rude figure of a dragon displayed upon

them; and then the great gates were flung open, the drawbridge

was lowered, and the head of the cavalcade swept forward under

the frowning arches; and we, following, soon found ourselves in

a great paved court, with towers and turrets stretching up into

the blue air on all the four sides; and all about us the dismount

was going on, and much greeting and ceremony, and running to and

fro, and a gay display of moving and intermingling colors, and

an altogether pleasant stir and noise and confusion.

CHAPTER II

KING ARTHUR'S COURT

The moment I got a chance I slipped aside privately and touched

an ancient common looking man on the shoulder and said, in an

insinuating, confidential way:

"Friend, do me a kindness. Do you belong to the asylum, or are

you just on a visit or something like that?"

He looked me over stupidly, and said:

"Marry, fair sir, me seemeth--"

"That will do," I said; "I reckon you are a patient."

I moved away, cogitating, and at the same time keeping an eye

out for any chance passenger in his right mind that might come

along and give me some light. I judged I had found one, presently;

so I drew him aside and said in his ear:

"If I could see the head keeper a minute--only just a minute--"

"Prithee do not let me."

"Let you _what_?"

"_Hinder_ me, then, if the word please thee better. Then he went

on to say he was an under-cook and could not stop to gossip,

though he would like it another time; for it would comfort his

very liver to know where I got my clothes. As he started away he

pointed and said yonder was one who was idle enough for my purpose,

and was seeking me besides, no doubt. This was an airy slim boy

in shrimp-colored tights that made him look like a forked carrot,

the rest of his gear was blue silk and dainty laces and ruffles;

and he had long yellow curls, and wore a plumed pink satin cap

tilted complacently over his ear. By his look, he was good-natured;

by his gait, he was satisfied with himself. He was pretty enough

to frame. He arrived, looked me over with a smiling and impudent

curiosity; said he had come for me, and informed me that he was a page.

"Go 'long," I said; "you ain't more than a paragraph."

It was pretty severe, but I was nettled. However, it never phazed

him; he didn't appear to know he was hurt. He began to talk and

laugh, in happy, thoughtless, boyish fashion, as we walked along,

and made himself old friends with me at once; asked me all sorts

of questions about myself and about my clothes, but never waited

for an answer--always chattered straight ahead, as if he didn't

know he had asked a question and wasn't expecting any reply, until

at last he happened to mention that he was born in the beginning

of the year 513.

It made the cold chills creep over me! I stopped and said,

a little faintly:

"Maybe I didn't hear you just right. Say it again--and say it

slow. What year was it?"

"513."

"513! You don't look it! Come, my boy, I am a stranger and

friendless; be honest and honorable with me. Are you in your

right mind?"

He said he was.

"Are these other people in their right minds?"

He said they were.

"And this isn't an asylum? I mean, it isn't a place where they

cure crazy people?"

He said it wasn't.

"Well, then," I said, "either I am a lunatic, or something just

as awful has happened. Now tell me, honest and true, where am I?"

"IN KING ARTHUR'S COURT."

I waited a minute, to let that idea shudder its way home,

and then said:

"And according to your notions, what year is it now?"

"528--nineteenth of June."

I felt a mournful sinking at the heart, and muttered: "I shall

never see my friends again--never, never again. They will not

be born for more than thirteen hundred years yet."

I seemed to believe the boy, I didn't know why. _Something_ in me

seemed to believe him--my consciousness, as you may say; but my

reason didn't. My reason straightway began to clamor; that was

natural. I didn't know how to go about satisfying it, because

I knew that the testimony of men wouldn't serve--my reason would

say they were lunatics, and throw out their evidence. But all

of a sudden I stumbled on the very thing, just by luck. I knew

that the only total eclipse of the sun in the first half of the

sixth century occurred on the 21st of June, A.D. 528, O.S., and

began at 3 minutes after 12 noon. I also knew that no total eclipse

of the sun was due in what to _me_ was the present year--i.e., 1879.

So, if I could keep my anxiety and curiosity from eating the heart

out of me for forty-eight hours, I should then find out for certain

whether this boy was telling me the truth or not.

Wherefore, being a practical Connecticut man, I now shoved this

whole problem clear out of my mind till its appointed day and hour

should come, in order that I might turn all my attention to the

circumstances of the present moment, and be alert and ready to

make the most out of them that could be made. One thing at a time,

is my motto--and just play that thing for all it is worth, even

if it's only two pair and a jack. I made up my mind to two things:

if it was still the nineteenth century and I was among lunatics

and couldn't get away, I would presently boss that asylum or know

the reason why; and if, on the other hand, it was really the sixth

century, all right, I didn't want any softer thing: I would boss

the whole country inside of three months; for I judged I would

have the start of the best-educated man in the kingdom by a matter

of thirteen hundred years and upward. I'm not a man to waste

time after my mind's made up and there's work on hand; so I said

to the page:

"Now, Clarence, my boy--if that might happen to be your name

--I'll get you to post me up a little if you don't mind. What is

the name of that apparition that brought me here?"

"My master and thine? That is the good knight and great lord

Sir Kay the Seneschal, foster brother to our liege the king."

"Very good; go on, tell me everything."

He made a long story of it; but the part that had immediate interest

for me was this: He said I was Sir Kay's prisoner, and that

in the due course of custom I would be flung into a dungeon and

left there on scant commons until my friends ransomed me--unless

I chanced to rot, first. I saw that the last chance had the best

show, but I didn't waste any bother about that; time was too

precious. The page said, further, that dinner was about ended

in the great hall by this time, and that as soon as the sociability

and the heavy drinking should begin, Sir Kay would have me in and

exhibit me before King Arthur and his illustrious knights seated at

the Table Round, and would brag about his exploit in capturing

me, and would probably exaggerate the facts a little, but it

wouldn't be good form for me to correct him, and not over safe,

either; and when I was done being exhibited, then ho for the

dungeon; but he, Clarence, would find a way to come and see me every

now and then, and cheer me up, and help me get word to my friends.

Get word to my friends! I thanked him; I couldn't do less; and

about this time a lackey came to say I was wanted; so Clarence

led me in and took me off to one side and sat down by me.

Well, it was a curious kind of spectacle, and interesting. It was

an immense place, and rather naked--yes, and full of loud contrasts.

It was very, very lofty; so lofty that the banners depending from

the arched beams and girders away up there floated in a sort of

twilight; there was a stone-railed gallery at each end, high up,

with musicians in the one, and women, clothed in stunning colors,

in the other. The floor was of big stone flags laid in black and

white squares, rather battered by age and use, and needing repair.

As to ornament, there wasn't any, strictly speaking; though on

the walls hung some huge tapestries which were probably taxed

as works of art; battle-pieces, they were, with horses shaped like

those which children cut out of paper or create in gingerbread;

with men on them in scale armor whose scales are represented by

round holes--so that the man's coat looks as if it had been done

with a biscuit-punch. There was a fireplace big enough to camp in;

and its projecting sides and hood, of carved and pillared stonework,

had the look of a cathedral door. Along the walls stood men-at-arms,

in breastplate and morion, with halberds for their only weapon

--rigid as statues; and that is what they looked like.

In the middle of this groined and vaulted public square was an oaken

table which they called the Table Round. It was as large as

a circus ring; and around it sat a great company of men dressed

in such various and splendid colors that it hurt one's eyes to look

at them. They wore their plumed hats, right along, except that

whenever one addressed himself directly to the king, he lifted

his hat a trifle just as he was beginning his remark.

Mainly they were drinking--from entire ox horns; but a few were

still munching bread or gnawing beef bones. There was about

an average of two dogs to one man; and these sat in expectant

attitudes till a spent bone was flung to them, and then they went

for it by brigades and divisions, with a rush, and there ensued

a fight which filled the prospect with a tumultuous chaos of

plunging heads and bodies and flashing tails, and the storm of

howlings and barkings deafened all speech for the time; but that

was no matter, for the dog-fight was always a bigger interest

anyway; the men rose, sometimes, to observe it the better and bet

on it, and the ladies and the musicians stretched themselves out

over their balusters with the same object; and all broke into

delighted ejaculations from time to time. In the end, the winning

dog stretched himself out comfortably with his bone between his

paws, and proceeded to growl over it, and gnaw it, and grease

the floor with it, just as fifty others were already doing; and the

rest of the court resumed their previous industries and entertainments.

As a rule, the speech and behavior of these people were gracious

and courtly; and I noticed that they were good and serious listeners

when anybody was telling anything--I mean in a dog-fightless

interval. And plainly, too, they were a childlike and innocent lot;

telling lies of the stateliest pattern with a most gentle and

winning naivety, and ready and willing to listen to anybody else's

lie, and believe it, too. It was hard to associate them with

anything cruel or dreadful; and yet they dealt in tales of blood

and suffering with a guileless relish that made me almost forget

to shudder.

I was not the only prisoner present. There were twenty or more.

Poor devils, many of them were maimed, hacked, carved, in a frightful

way; and their hair, their faces, their clothing, were caked with

black and stiffened drenchings of blood. They were suffering

sharp physical pain, of course; and weariness, and hunger and

thirst, no doubt; and at least none had given them the comfort

of a wash, or even the poor charity of a lotion for their wounds;

yet you never heard them utter a moan or a groan, or saw them show

any sign of restlessness, or any disposition to complain. The

thought was forced upon me: "The rascals--_they_ have served other

people so in their day; it being their own turn, now, they were

not expecting any better treatment than this; so their philosophical

bearing is not an outcome of mental training, intellectual fortitude,

reasoning; it is mere animal training; they are white Indians."

CHAPTER III

KNIGHTS OF THE TABLE ROUND

Mainly the Round Table talk was monologues--narrative accounts

of the adventures in which these prisoners were captured and their

friends and backers killed and stripped of their steeds and armor.

As a general thing--as far as I could make out--these murderous

adventures were not forays undertaken to avenge injuries, nor to

settle old disputes or sudden fallings out; no, as a rule they were

simply duels between strangers--duels between people who had never

even been introduced to each other, and between whom existed no

cause of offense whatever. Many a time I had seen a couple of boys,

strangers, meet by chance, and say simultaneously, "I can lick you,"

and go at it on the spot; but I had always imagined until now that

that sort of thing belonged to children only, and was a sign and

mark of childhood; but here were these big boobies sticking to it

and taking pride in it clear up into full age and beyond. Yet there

was something very engaging about these great simple-hearted

creatures, something attractive and lovable. There did not seem

to be brains enough in the entire nursery, so to speak, to bait

a fish-hook with; but you didn't seem to mind that, after a little,

because you soon saw that brains were not needed in a society

like that, and indeed would have marred it, hindered it, spoiled

its symmetry--perhaps rendered its existence impossible.

There was a fine manliness observable in almost every face; and

in some a certain loftiness and sweetness that rebuked your

belittling criticisms and stilled them. A most noble benignity

and purity reposed in the countenance of him they called Sir Galahad,

and likewise in the king's also; and there was majesty and greatness

in the giant frame and high bearing of Sir Launcelot of the Lake.

There was presently an incident which centered the general interest

upon this Sir Launcelot. At a sign from a sort of master of

ceremonies, six or eight of the prisoners rose and came forward

in a body and knelt on the floor and lifted up their hands toward

the ladies' gallery and begged the grace of a word with the queen.

The most conspicuously situated lady in that massed flower-bed

of feminine show and finery inclined her head by way of assent,

and then the spokesman of the prisoners delivered himself and his

fellows into her hands for free pardon, ransom, captivity, or death,

as she in her good pleasure might elect; and this, as he said, he

was doing by command of Sir Kay the Seneschal, whose prisoners

they were, he having vanquished them by his single might and

prowess in sturdy conflict in the field.

Surprise and astonishment flashed from face to face all over

the house; the queen's gratified smile faded out at the name of

Sir Kay, and she looked disappointed; and the page whispered in

my ear with an accent and manner expressive of extravagant derision--

"Sir _Kay_, forsooth! Oh, call me pet names, dearest, call me

a marine! In twice a thousand years shall the unholy invention

of man labor at odds to beget the fellow to this majestic lie!"

Every eye was fastened with severe inquiry upon Sir Kay. But he

was equal to the occasion. He got up and played his hand like

a major--and took every trick. He said he would state the case

exactly according to the facts; he would tell the simple

straightforward tale, without comment of his own; "and then,"

said he, "if ye find glory and honor due, ye will give it unto him

who is the mightiest man of his hands that ever bare shield or

strake with sword in the ranks of Christian battle--even him that

sitteth there!" and he pointed to Sir Launcelot. Ah, he fetched

them; it was a rattling good stroke. Then he went on and told

how Sir Launcelot, seeking adventures, some brief time gone by,

killed seven giants at one sweep of his sword, and set a hundred

and forty-two captive maidens free; and then went further, still

seeking adventures, and found him (Sir Kay) fighting a desperate

fight against nine foreign knights, and straightway took the battle

solely into his own hands, and conquered the nine; and that night

Sir Launcelot rose quietly, and dressed him in Sir Kay's armor and

took Sir Kay's horse and gat him away into distant lands, and

vanquished sixteen knights in one pitched battle and thirty-four

in another; and all these and the former nine he made to swear

that about Whitsuntide they would ride to Arthur's court and yield

them to Queen Guenever's hands as captives of Sir Kay the Seneschal,

spoil of his knightly prowess; and now here were these half dozen,

and the rest would be along as soon as they might be healed of

their desperate wounds.

Well, it was touching to see the queen blush and smile, and look

embarrassed and happy, and fling furtive glances at Sir Launcelot

that would have got him shot in Arkansas, to a dead certainty.

Everybody praised the valor and magnanimity of Sir Launcelot; and

as for me, I was perfectly amazed, that one man, all by himself,

should have been able to beat down and capture such battalions

of practiced fighters. I said as much to Clarence; but this mocking

featherhead only said:

"An Sir Kay had had time to get another skin of sour wine into him,

ye had seen the accompt doubled."

I looked at the boy in sorrow; and as I looked I saw the cloud of

a deep despondency settle upon his countenance. I followed the

direction of his eye, and saw that a very old and white-bearded

man, clothed in a flowing black gown, had risen and was standing

at the table upon unsteady legs, and feebly swaying his ancient

head and surveying the company with his watery and wandering eye.

The same suffering look that was in the page's face was observable

in all the faces around--the look of dumb creatures who know that

they must endure and make no moan.

"Marry, we shall have it again," sighed the boy; "that same old

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

and that he _will_ tell till he dieth, every time he hath gotten his

barrel full and feeleth his exaggeration-mill a-working. Would

God I had died or I saw this day!"

"Who is it?"

"Merlin, the mighty liar and magician, perdition singe him for

the weariness he worketh with his one tale! But that men fear

him for that he hath the storms and the lightnings and all the

devils that be in hell at his beck and call, they would have dug

his entrails out these many years ago to get at that tale and

squelch it. He telleth it always in the third person, making

believe he is too modest to glorify himself--maledictions light

upon him, misfortune be his dole! Good friend, prithee call me

for evensong."

The boy nestled himself upon my shoulder and pretended to go

to sleep. The old man began his tale; and presently the lad was

asleep in reality; so also were the dogs, and the court, the lackeys,

and the files of men-at-arms. The droning voice droned on; a soft

snoring arose on all sides and supported it like a deep and subdued

accompaniment of wind instruments. Some heads were bowed upon

folded arms, some lay back with open mouths that issued unconscious

music; the flies buzzed and bit, unmolested, the rats swarmed

softly out from a hundred holes, and pattered about, and made

themselves at home everywhere; and one of them sat up like a

squirrel on the king's head and held a bit of cheese in its hands

and nibbled it, and dribbled the crumbs in the king's face with

naive and impudent irreverence. It was a tranquil scene, and

restful to the weary eye and the jaded spirit.

This was the old man's tale. He said:

"Right so the king and Merlin departed, and went until an hermit

that was a good man and a great leech. So the hermit searched

all his wounds and gave him good salves; so the king was there

three days, and then were his wounds well amended that he might

ride and go, and so departed. And as they rode, Arthur said,

I have no sword. No force* [*Footnote from M.T.: No matter.],

said Merlin, hereby is a sword that shall be yours and I may.

So they rode till they came to a lake, the which was a fair water

and broad, and in the midst of the lake Arthur was ware of an arm

clothed in white samite, that held a fair sword in that hand.

Lo, said Merlin, yonder is that sword that I spake of. With that

they saw a damsel going upon the lake. What damsel is that?

said Arthur. That is the Lady of the lake, said Merlin; and within

that lake is a rock, and therein is as fair a place as any on earth,

and richly beseen, and this damsel will come to you anon, and then

speak ye fair to her that she will give you that sword. Anon

withal came the damsel unto Arthur and saluted him, and he her

again. Damsel, said Arthur, what sword is that, that yonder

the arm holdeth above the water? I would it were mine, for I have

no sword. Sir Arthur King, said the damsel, that sword is mine,

and if ye will give me a gift when I ask it you, ye shall have it.

By my faith, said Arthur, I will give you what gift ye will ask.

Well, said the damsel, go ye into yonder barge and row yourself

to the sword, and take it and the scabbard with you, and I will ask

my gift when I see my time. So Sir Arthur and Merlin alight, and

tied their horses to two trees, and so they went into the ship,

and when they came to the sword that the hand held, Sir Arthur

took it up by the handles, and took it with him. And the arm

and the hand went under the water; and so they came unto the land

and rode forth. And then Sir Arthur saw a rich pavilion. What

signifieth yonder pavilion? It is the knight's pavilion, said

Merlin, that ye fought with last, Sir Pellinore, but he is out,

he is not there; he hath ado with a knight of yours, that hight

Egglame, and they have fought together, but at the last Egglame

fled, and else he had been dead, and he hath chased him even

to Carlion, and we shall meet with him anon in the highway. That

is well said, said Arthur, now have I a sword, now will I wage

battle with him, and be avenged on him. Sir, ye shall not so,

said Merlin, for the knight is weary of fighting and chasing, so

that ye shall have no worship to have ado with him; also, he will

not lightly be matched of one knight living; and therefore it is my

counsel, let him pass, for he shall do you good service in short

time, and his sons, after his days. Also ye shall see that day

in short space ye shall be right glad to give him your sister

to wed. When I see him, I will do as ye advise me, said Arthur.

Then Sir Arthur looked on the sword, and liked it passing well.

Whether liketh you better, said Merlin, the sword or the scabbard?

Me liketh better the sword, said Arthur. Ye are more unwise,

said Merlin, for the scabbard is worth ten of the sword, for while

ye have the scabbard upon you ye shall never lose no blood, be ye

never so sore wounded; therefore, keep well the scabbard always

with you. So they rode into Carlion, and by the way they met with

Sir Pellinore; but Merlin had done such a craft that Pellinore saw

not Arthur, and he passed by without any words. I marvel, said

Arthur, that the knight would not speak. Sir, said Merlin, he saw

you not; for and he had seen you ye had not lightly departed. So

they came unto Carlion, whereof his knights were passing glad.

And when they heard of his adventures they marveled that he would

jeopard his person so alone. But all men of worship said it was

merry to be under such a chieftain that would put his person in

adventure as other poor knights did."

CHAPTER IV

SIR DINADAN THE HUMORIST

It seemed to me that this quaint lie was most simply and beautifully

told; but then I had heard it only once, and that makes a difference;

it was pleasant to the others when it was fresh, no doubt.

Sir Dinadan the Humorist was the first to awake, and he soon roused

the rest with a practical joke of a sufficiently poor quality.

He tied some metal mugs to a dog's tail and turned him loose,

and he tore around and around the place in a frenzy of fright,

with all the other dogs bellowing after him and battering and

crashing against everything that came in their way and making

altogether a chaos of confusion and a most deafening din and

turmoil; at which every man and woman of the multitude laughed

till the tears flowed, and some fell out of their chairs and

wallowed on the floor in ecstasy. It was just like so many children.

Sir Dinadan was so proud of his exploit that he could not keep

from telling over and over again, to weariness, how the immortal

idea happened to occur to him; and as is the way with humorists

of his breed, he was still laughing at it after everybody else had

got through. He was so set up that he concluded to make a speech

--of course a humorous speech. I think I never heard so many old

played-out jokes strung together in my life. He was worse than

the minstrels, worse than the clown in the circus. It seemed

peculiarly sad to sit here, thirteen hundred years before I was

born, and listen again to poor, flat, worm-eaten jokes that had

given me the dry gripes when I was a boy thirteen hundred years

afterwards. It about convinced me that there isn't any such thing

as a new joke possible. Everybody laughed at these antiquities

--but then they always do; I had noticed that, centuries later.

However, of course the scoffer didn't laugh--I mean the boy. No,

he scoffed; there wasn't anything he wouldn't scoff at. He said

the most of Sir Dinadan's jokes were rotten and the rest were

petrified. I said "petrified" was good; as I believed, myself,

that the only right way to classify the majestic ages of some of

those jokes was by geologic periods. But that neat idea hit

the boy in a blank place, for geology hadn't been invented yet.

However, I made a note of the remark, and calculated to educate

the commonwealth up to it if I pulled through. It is no use

to throw a good thing away merely because the market isn't ripe yet.

Now Sir Kay arose and began to fire up on his history-mill with me

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

told how he had encountered me in a far land of barbarians, who

all wore the same ridiculous garb that I did--a garb that was a work

of enchantment, and intended to make the wearer secure from hurt

by human hands. However he had nullified the force of the

enchantment by prayer, and had killed my thirteen knights in

a three hours' battle, and taken me prisoner, sparing my life

in order that so strange a curiosity as I was might be exhibited

to the wonder and admiration of the king and the court. He spoke

of me all the time, in the blandest way, as "this prodigious giant,"

and "this horrible sky-towering monster," and "this tusked and

taloned man-devouring ogre", and everybody took in all this bosh

in the naivest way, and never smiled or seemed to notice that

there was any discrepancy between these watered statistics and me.

He said that in trying to escape from him I sprang into the top of

a tree two hundred cubits high at a single bound, but he dislodged

me with a stone the size of a cow, which "all-to brast" the most

of my bones, and then swore me to appear at Arthur's court for

sentence. He ended by condemning me to die at noon on the 21st;

and was so little concerned about it that he stopped to yawn before

he named the date.

I was in a dismal state by this time; indeed, I was hardly enough

in my right mind to keep the run of a dispute that sprung up as

to how I had better be killed, the possibility of the killing being

doubted by some, because of the enchantment in my clothes. And yet

it was nothing but an ordinary suit of fifteen-dollar slop-shops.

Still, I was sane enough to notice this detail, to wit: many of

the terms used in the most matter-of-fact way by this great

assemblage of the first ladies and gentlemen in the land would

have made a Comanche blush. Indelicacy is too mild a term to convey

the idea. However, I had read "Tom Jones," and "Roderick Random,"

and other books of that kind, and knew that the highest and first

ladies and gentlemen in England had remained little or no cleaner

in their talk, and in the morals and conduct which such talk

implies, clear up to a hundred years ago; in fact clear into our

own nineteenth century--in which century, broadly speaking,

the earliest samples of the real lady and real gentleman discoverable

in English history--or in European history, for that matter--may be

said to have made their appearance. Suppose Sir Walter, instead

of putting the conversations into the mouths of his characters,

had allowed the characters to speak for themselves? We should

have had talk from Rebecca and Ivanhoe and the soft lady Rowena

which would embarrass a tramp in our day. However, to the

unconsciously indelicate all things are delicate. King Arthur's

people were not aware that they were indecent and I had presence

of mind enough not to mention it.

They were so troubled about my enchanted clothes that they were

mightily relieved, at last, when old Merlin swept the difficulty

away for them with a common-sense hint. He asked them why they

were so dull--why didn't it occur to them to strip me. In half a

minute I was as naked as a pair of tongs! And dear, dear, to think

of it: I was the only embarrassed person there. Everybody discussed

me; and did it as unconcernedly as if I had been a cabbage.

Queen Guenever was as naively interested as the rest, and said

she had never seen anybody with legs just like mine before. It was

the only compliment I got--if it was a compliment.

Finally I was carried off in one direction, and my perilous clothes

in another. I was shoved into a dark and narrow cell in a dungeon,

with some scant remnants for dinner, some moldy straw for a bed,

and no end of rats for company.

CHAPTER V

AN INSPIRATION

I was so tired that even my fears were not able to keep me awake long.

When I next came to myself, I seemed to have been asleep a very

long time. My first thought was, "Well, what an astonishing dream

I've had! I reckon I've waked only just in time to keep from

being hanged or drowned or burned or something.... I'll nap again

till the whistle blows, and then I'll go down to the arms factory

and have it out with Hercules."

But just then I heard the harsh music of rusty chains and bolts,

a light flashed in my eyes, and that butterfly, Clarence, stood

before me! I gasped with surprise; my breath almost got away from me.

"What!" I said, "you here yet? Go along with the rest of

the dream! scatter!"

But he only laughed, in his light-hearted way, and fell to making

fun of my sorry plight.

"All right," I said resignedly, "let the dream go on; I'm in no hurry."

"Prithee what dream?"

"What dream? Why, the dream that I am in Arthur's court--a person

who never existed; and that I am talking to you, who are nothing

but a work of the imagination."

"Oh, la, indeed! and is it a dream that you're to be burned

to-morrow? Ho-ho--answer me that!"

The shock that went through me was distressing. I now began

to reason that my situation was in the last degree serious, dream

or no dream; for I knew by past experience of the lifelike intensity

of dreams, that to be burned to death, even in a dream, would be

very far from being a jest, and was a thing to be avoided, by any

means, fair or foul, that I could contrive. So I said beseechingly:

"Ah, Clarence, good boy, only friend I've got,--for you _are_ my

friend, aren't you?--don't fail me; help me to devise some way

of escaping from this place!"

"Now do but hear thyself! Escape? Why, man, the corridors are

in guard and keep of men-at-arms."

"No doubt, no doubt. But how many, Clarence? Not many, I hope?"

"Full a score. One may not hope to escape." After a pause

--hesitatingly: "and there be other reasons--and weightier."

"Other ones? What are they?"

"Well, they say--oh, but I daren't, indeed daren't!"

"Why, poor lad, what is the matter? Why do you blench? Why do

you tremble so?"

"Oh, in sooth, there is need! I do want to tell you, but--"

"Come, come, be brave, be a man--speak out, there's a good lad!"

He hesitated, pulled one way by desire, the other way by fear;

then he stole to the door and peeped out, listening; and finally

crept close to me and put his mouth to my ear and told me his

fearful news in a whisper, and with all the cowering apprehension

of one who was venturing upon awful ground and speaking of things

whose very mention might be freighted with death.

"Merlin, in his malice, has woven a spell about this dungeon, and

there bides not the man in these kingdoms that would be desperate

enough to essay to cross its lines with you! Now God pity me,

I have told it! Ah, be kind to me, be merciful to a poor boy who

means thee well; for an thou betray me I am lost!"

I laughed the only really refreshing laugh I had had for some time;

and shouted:

"Merlin has wrought a spell! _Merlin_, forsooth! That cheap old

humbug, that maundering old ass? Bosh, pure bosh, the silliest bosh

in the world! Why, it does seem to me that of all the childish,

idiotic, chuckle-headed, chicken-livered superstitions that ev

--oh, damn Merlin!"

But Clarence had slumped to his knees before I had half finished,

and he was like to go out of his mind with fright.

"Oh, beware! These are awful words! Any moment these walls

may crumble upon us if you say such things. Oh call them back

before it is too late!"

Now this strange exhibition gave me a good idea and set me to

thinking. If everybody about here was so honestly and sincerely

afraid of Merlin's pretended magic as Clarence was, certainly

a superior man like me ought to be shrewd enough to contrive

some way to take advantage of such a state of things. I went

on thinking, and worked out a plan. Then I said:

"Get up. Pull yourself together; look me in the eye. Do you

know why I laughed?"

"No--but for our blessed Lady's sake, do it no more."

"Well, I'll tell you why I laughed. Because I'm a magician myself."

"Thou!" The boy recoiled a step, and caught his breath, for

the thing hit him rather sudden; but the aspect which he took

on was very, very respectful. I took quick note of that; it

indicated that a humbug didn't need to have a reputation in this

asylum; people stood ready to take him at his word, without that.

I resumed.

"I've know Merlin seven hundred years, and he--"

"Seven hun--"

"Don't interrupt me. He has died and come alive again thirteen

times, and traveled under a new name every time: Smith, Jones,

Robinson, Jackson, Peters, Haskins, Merlin--a new alias every

time he turns up. I knew him in Egypt three hundred years ago;

I knew him in India five hundred years ago--he is always blethering

around in my way, everywhere I go; he makes me tired. He don't

amount to shucks, as a magician; knows some of the old common

tricks, but has never got beyond the rudiments, and never will.

He is well enough for the provinces--one-night stands and that

sort of thing, you know--but dear me, _he_ oughtn't to set up for

an expert--anyway not where there's a real artist. Now look here,

Clarence, I am going to stand your friend, right along, and in

return you must be mine. I want you to do me a favor. I want

you to get word to the king that I am a magician myself--and the

Supreme Grand High-yu-Muck-amuck and head of the tribe, at that;

and I want him to be made to understand that I am just quietly

arranging a little calamity here that will make the fur fly in these

realms if Sir Kay's project is carried out and any harm comes

to me. Will you get that to the king for me?"

The poor boy was in such a state that he could hardly answer me.

It was pitiful to see a creature so terrified, so unnerved, so

demoralized. But he promised everything; and on my side he made

me promise over and over again that I would remain his friend, and

never turn against him or cast any enchantments upon him. Then

he worked his way out, staying himself with his hand along the

wall, like a sick person.

Presently this thought occurred to me: how heedless I have been!

When the boy gets calm, he will wonder why a great magician like me

should have begged a boy like him to help me get out of this place;

he will put this and that together, and will see that I am a humbug.

I worried over that heedless blunder for an hour, and called myself

a great many hard names, meantime. But finally it occurred to me

all of a sudden that these animals didn't reason; that _they_ never

put this and that together; that all their talk showed that they

didn't know a discrepancy when they saw it. I was at rest, then.

But as soon as one is at rest, in this world, off he goes on

something else to worry about. It occurred to me that I had made

another blunder: I had sent the boy off to alarm his betters with

a threat--I intending to invent a calamity at my leisure; now

the people who are the readiest and eagerest and willingest to

swallow miracles are the very ones who are hungriest to see you

perform them; suppose I should be called on for a sample? Suppose

I should be asked to name my calamity? Yes, I had made a blunder;

I ought to have invented my calamity first. "What shall I do?

what can I say, to gain a little time?" I was in trouble again;

in the deepest kind of trouble...

"There's a footstep!--they're coming. If I had only just a moment

to think.... Good, I've got it. I'm all right."

You see, it was the eclipse. It came into my mind in the nick

of time, how Columbus, or Cortez, or one of those people, played

an eclipse as a saving trump once, on some savages, and I saw my

chance. I could play it myself, now, and it wouldn't be any

plagiarism, either, because I should get it in nearly a thousand

years ahead of those parties.

Clarence came in, subdued, distressed, and said:

"I hasted the message to our liege the king, and straightway he

had me to his presence. He was frighted even to the marrow,

and was minded to give order for your instant enlargement, and

that you be clothed in fine raiment and lodged as befitted one so

great; but then came Merlin and spoiled all; for he persuaded

the king that you are mad, and know not whereof you speak; and

said your threat is but foolishness and idle vaporing. They

disputed long, but in the end, Merlin, scoffing, said, 'Wherefore

hath he not _named_ his brave calamity? Verily it is because he

cannot.' This thrust did in a most sudden sort close the king's

mouth, and he could offer naught to turn the argument; and so,

reluctant, and full loth to do you the discourtesy, he yet prayeth

you to consider his perplexed case, as noting how the matter stands,

and name the calamity--if so be you have determined the nature

of it and the time of its coming. Oh, prithee delay not; to delay

at such a time were to double and treble the perils that already

compass thee about. Oh, be thou wise--name the calamity!"

I allowed silence to accumulate while I got my impressiveness

together, and then said:

"How long have I been shut up in this hole?"

"Ye were shut up when yesterday was well spent. It is 9 of

the morning now."

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

now! And yet it is the very complexion of midnight, to a shade.

This is the 20th, then?"

"The 20th--yes."

"And I am to be burned alive to-morrow." The boy shuddered.

"At what hour?"

"At high noon."

"Now then, I will tell you what to say." I paused, and stood over

that cowering lad a whole minute in awful silence; then, in a voice

deep, measured, charged with doom, I began, and rose by dramatically

graded stages to my colossal climax, which I delivered in as sublime

and noble a way as ever I did such a thing in my life: "Go back

and tell the king that at that hour I will smother the whole world

in the dead blackness of midnight; I will blot out the sun, and he

shall never shine again; the fruits of the earth shall rot for lack

of light and warmth, and the peoples of the earth shall famish

and die, to the last man!"

I had to carry the boy out myself, he sunk into such a collapse.

I handed him over to the soldiers, and went back.

CHAPTER VI

THE ECLIPSE

In the stillness and the darkness, realization soon began to

supplement knowledge. The mere knowledge of a fact is pale; but

when you come to _realize_ your fact, it takes on color. It is

all the difference between hearing of a man being stabbed to

the heart, and seeing it done. In the stillness and the darkness,

the knowledge that I was in deadly danger took to itself deeper

and deeper meaning all the time; a something which was realization

crept inch by inch through my veins and turned me cold.

But it is a blessed provision of nature that at times like these,

as soon as a man's mercury has got down to a certain point there

comes a revulsion, and he rallies. Hope springs up, and cheerfulness

along with it, and then he is in good shape to do something for

himself, if anything can be done. When my rally came, it came with

a bound. I said to myself that my eclipse would be sure to save me,

and make me the greatest man in the kingdom besides; and straightway

my mercury went up to the top of the tube, and my solicitudes

all vanished. I was as happy a man as there was in the world.

I was even impatient for to-morrow to come, I so wanted to gather

in that great triumph and be the center of all the nation's wonder

and reverence. Besides, in a business way it would be the making

of me; I knew that.

Meantime there was one thing which had got pushed into the background

of my mind. That was the half-conviction that when the nature

of my proposed calamity should be reported to those superstitious

people, it would have such an effect that they would want to

compromise. So, by and by when I heard footsteps coming, that

thought was recalled to me, and I said to myself, "As sure as

anything, it's the compromise. Well, if it is good, all right,

I will accept; but if it isn't, I mean to stand my ground and play

my hand for all it is worth."

The door opened, and some men-at-arms appeared. The leader said:

"The stake is ready. Come!"

The stake! The strength went out of me, and I almost fell down.

It is hard to get one's breath at such a time, such lumps come into

one's throat, and such gaspings; but as soon as I could speak, I said:

"But this is a mistake--the execution is to-morrow."

"Order changed; been set forward a day. Haste thee!"

I was lost. There was no help for me. I was dazed, stupefied;

I had no command over myself, I only wandered purposely about,

like one out of his mind; so the soldiers took hold of me, and

pulled me along with them, out of the cell and along the maze of

underground corridors, and finally into the fierce glare of daylight

and the upper world. As we stepped into the vast enclosed court

of the castle I got a shock; for the first thing I saw was the stake,

standing in the center, and near it the piled fagots and a monk.

On all four sides of the court the seated multitudes rose rank

above rank, forming sloping terraces that were rich with color.

The king and the queen sat in their thrones, the most conspicuous

figures there, of course.

To note all this, occupied but a second. The next second Clarence

had slipped from some place of concealment and was pouring news

into my ear, his eyes beaming with triumph and gladness. He said:

"Tis through _me_ the change was wrought! And main hard have I worked

to do it, too. But when I revealed to them the calamity in store,

and saw how mighty was the terror it did engender, then saw I also

that this was the time to strike! Wherefore I diligently pretended,

unto this and that and the other one, that your power against the sun

could not reach its full until the morrow; and so if any would save

the sun and the world, you must be slain to-day, while your

enchantments are but in the weaving and lack potency. Odsbodikins,

it was but a dull lie, a most indifferent invention, but you should

have seen them seize it and swallow it, in the frenzy of their

fright, as it were salvation sent from heaven; and all the while

was I laughing in my sleeve the one moment, to see them so cheaply

deceived, and glorifying God the next, that He was content to let

the meanest of His creatures be His instrument to the saving of

thy life. Ah how happy has the matter sped! You will not need

to do the sun a _real_ hurt--ah, forget not that, on your soul forget

it not! Only make a little darkness--only the littlest little

darkness, mind, and cease with that. It will be sufficient. They

will see that I spoke falsely,--being ignorant, as they will fancy

--and with the falling of the first shadow of that darkness you

shall see them go mad with fear; and they will set you free and

make you great! Go to thy triumph, now! But remember--ah, good

friend, I implore thee remember my supplication, and do the blessed

sun no hurt. For _my_ sake, thy true friend."

I choked out some words through my grief and misery; as much as

to say I would spare the sun; for which the lad's eyes paid me back

with such deep and loving gratitude that I had not the heart

to tell him his good-hearted foolishness had ruined me and sent me

to my death.

As the soldiers assisted me across the court the stillness was

so profound that if I had been blindfold I should have supposed

I was in a solitude instead of walled in by four thousand people.

There was not a movement perceptible in those masses of humanity;

they were as rigid as stone images, and as pale; and dread sat

upon every countenance. This hush continued while I was being

chained to the stake; it still continued while the fagots were

carefully and tediously piled about my ankles, my knees, my thighs,

my body. Then there was a pause, and a deeper hush, if possible,

and a man knelt down at my feet with a blazing torch; the multitude

strained forward, gazing, and parting slightly from their seats

without knowing it; the monk raised his hands above my head, and

his eyes toward the blue sky, and began some words in Latin; in

this attitude he droned on and on, a little while, and then stopped.

I waited two or three moments; then looked up; he was standing

there petrified. With a common impulse the multitude rose slowly

up and stared into the sky. I followed their eyes, as sure as guns,

there was my eclipse beginning! The life went boiling through

my veins; I was a new man! The rim of black spread slowly into

the sun's disk, my heart beat higher and higher, and still the

assemblage and the priest stared into the sky, motionless. I knew

that this gaze would be turned upon me, next. When it was, I was

ready. I was in one of the most grand attitudes I ever struck,

with my arm stretched up pointing to the sun. It was a noble

effect. You could _see_ the shudder sweep the mass like a wave.

Two shouts rang out, one close upon the heels of the other:

"Apply the torch!"

"I forbid it!"

The one was from Merlin, the other from the king. Merlin started

from his place--to apply the torch himself, I judged. I said:

"Stay where you are. If any man moves--even the king--before

I give him leave, I will blast him with thunder, I will consume

him with lightnings!"

The multitude sank meekly into their seats, and I was just expecting

they would. Merlin hesitated a moment or two, and I was on pins

and needles during that little while. Then he sat down, and I took

a good breath; for I knew I was master of the situation now.

The king said:

"Be merciful, fair sir, and essay no further in this perilous matter,

lest disaster follow. It was reported to us that your powers could

not attain unto their full strength until the morrow; but--"

"Your Majesty thinks the report may have been a lie? It _was_ a lie."

That made an immense effect; up went appealing hands everywhere,

and the king was assailed with a storm of supplications that

I might be bought off at any price, and the calamity stayed.

The king was eager to comply. He said:

"Name any terms, reverend sir, even to the halving of my kingdom;

but banish this calamity, spare the sun!"

My fortune was made. I would have taken him up in a minute, but

I couldn't stop an eclipse; the thing was out of the question. So

I asked time to consider. The king said:

"How long--ah, how long, good sir? Be merciful; look, it groweth

darker, moment by moment. Prithee how long?"

"Not long. Half an hour--maybe an hour."

There were a thousand pathetic protests, but I couldn't shorten up

any, for I couldn't remember how long a total eclipse lasts. I was

in a puzzled condition, anyway, and wanted to think. Something

was wrong about that eclipse, and the fact was very unsettling.

If this wasn't the one I was after, how was I to tell whether this

was the sixth century, or nothing but a dream? Dear me, if I could

only prove it was the latter! Here was a glad new hope. If the boy

was right about the date, and this was surely the 20th, it _wasn't_

the sixth century. I reached for the monk's sleeve, in considerable

excitement, and asked him what day of the month it was.

Hang him, he said it was the _twenty-first_! It made me turn cold

to hear him. I begged him not to make any mistake about it; but

he was sure; he knew it was the 21st. So, that feather-headed

boy had botched things again! The time of the day was right

for the eclipse; I had seen that for myself, in the beginning,

by the dial that was near by. Yes, I was in King Arthur's court,

and I might as well make the most out of it I could.

The darkness was steadily growing, the people becoming more and

more distressed. I now said:

"I have reflected, Sir King. For a lesson, I will let this darkness

proceed, and spread night in the world; but whether I blot out

the sun for good, or restore it, shall rest with you. These are

the terms, to wit: You shall remain king over all your dominions,

and receive all the glories and honors that belong to the kingship;

but you shall appoint me your perpetual minister and executive,

and give me for my services one per cent of such actual increase

of revenue over and above its present amount as I may succeed

in creating for the state. If I can't live on that, I sha'n't ask

anybody to give me a lift. Is it satisfactory?"

There was a prodigious roar of applause, and out of the midst

of it the king's voice rose, saying:

"Away with his bonds, and set him free! and do him homage, high

and low, rich and poor, for he is become the king's right hand,

is clothed with power and authority, and his seat is upon the highest

step of the throne! Now sweep away this creeping night, and bring

the light and cheer again, that all the world may bless thee."

But I said:

"That a common man should be shamed before the world, is nothing;

but it were dishonor to the _king_ if any that saw his minister naked

should not also see him delivered from his shame. If I might ask

that my clothes be brought again--"

"They are not meet," the king broke in. "Fetch raiment of another

sort; clothe him like a prince!"

My idea worked. I wanted to keep things as they were till the

eclipse was total, otherwise they would be trying again to get

me to dismiss the darkness, and of course I couldn't do it. Sending

for the clothes gained some delay, but not enough. So I had to make

another excuse. I said it would be but natural if the king should

change his mind and repent to some extent of what he had done

under excitement; therefore I would let the darkness grow a while,

and if at the end of a reasonable time the king had kept his mind

the same, the darkness should be dismissed. Neither the king nor

anybody else was satisfied with that arrangement, but I had

to stick to my point.

It grew darker and darker and blacker and blacker, while I struggled

with those awkward sixth-century clothes. It got to be pitch dark,

at last, and the multitude groaned with horror to feel the cold

uncanny night breezes fan through the place and see the stars

come out and twinkle in the sky. At last the eclipse was total,

and I was very glad of it, but everybody else was in misery; which

was quite natural. I said:

"The king, by his silence, still stands to the terms." Then

I lifted up my hands--stood just so a moment--then I said, with

the most awful solemnity: "Let the enchantment dissolve and

pass harmless away!"

There was no response, for a moment, in that deep darkness and

that graveyard hush. But when the silver rim of the sun pushed

itself out, a moment or two later, the assemblage broke loose with

a vast shout and came pouring down like a deluge to smother me

with blessings and gratitude; and Clarence was not the last of

the wash, to be sure.

CHAPTER VII

MERLIN'S TOWER

Inasmuch as I was now the second personage in the Kingdom, as far

as political power and authority were concerned, much was made

of me. My raiment was of silks and velvets and cloth of gold,

and by consequence was very showy, also uncomfortable. But habit

would soon reconcile me to my clothes; I was aware of that. I was

given the choicest suite of apartments in the castle, after

the king's. They were aglow with loud-colored silken hangings,

but the stone floors had nothing but rushes on them for a carpet,

and they were misfit rushes at that, being not all of one breed.

As for conveniences, properly speaking, there weren't any. I mean

_little_ conveniences; it is the little conveniences that make

the real comfort of life. The big oaken chairs, graced with rude

carvings, were well enough, but that was the stopping place.

There was no soap, no matches, no looking-glass--except a metal

one, about as powerful as a pail of water. And not a chromo.

I had been used to chromos for years, and I saw now that without

my suspecting it a passion for art had got worked into the fabric

of my being, and was become a part of me. It made me homesick

to look around over this proud and gaudy but heartless barrenness

and remember that in our house in East Hartford, all unpretending

as it was, you couldn't go into a room but you would find an

insurance-chromo, or at least a three-color God-Bless-Our-Home

over the door; and in the parlor we had nine. But here, even in

my grand room of state, there wasn't anything in the nature of

a picture except a thing the size of a bedquilt, which was either

woven or knitted (it had darned places in it), and nothing in it

was the right color or the right shape; and as for proportions,

even Raphael himself couldn't have botched them more formidably,

after all his practice on those nightmares they call his "celebrated

Hampton Court cartoons." Raphael was a bird. We had several

of his chromos; one was his "Miraculous Draught of Fishes," where

he puts in a miracle of his own--puts three men into a canoe which

wouldn't have held a dog without upsetting. I always admired

to study R.'s art, it was so fresh and unconventional.

There wasn't even a bell or a speaking-tube in the castle. I had

a great many servants, and those that were on duty lolled in the

anteroom; and when I wanted one of them I had to go and call for him.

There was no gas, there were no candles; a bronze dish half full

of boarding-house butter with a blazing rag floating in it was

the thing that produced what was regarded as light. A lot of

these hung along the walls and modified the dark, just toned it

down enough to make it dismal. If you went out at night, your

servants carried torches. There were no books, pens, paper or

ink, and no glass in the openings they believed to be windows.

It is a little thing--glass is--until it is absent, then it becomes

a big thing. But perhaps the worst of all was, that there wasn't

any sugar, coffee, tea, or tobacco. I saw that I was just another

Robinson Crusoe cast away on an uninhabited island, with no society

but some more or less tame animals, and if I wanted to make life

bearable I must do as he did--invent, contrive, create, reorganize

things; set brain and hand to work, and keep them busy. Well,

that was in my line.

One thing troubled me along at first--the immense interest which

people took in me. Apparently the whole nation wanted a look

at me. It soon transpired that the eclipse had scared the British

world almost to death; that while it lasted the whole country,

from one end to the other, was in a pitiable state of panic, and

the churches, hermitages, and monkeries overflowed with praying

and weeping poor creatures who thought the end of the world was

come. Then had followed the news that the producer of this awful

event was a stranger, a mighty magician at Arthur's court; that he

could have blown out the sun like a candle, and was just going

to do it when his mercy was purchased, and he then dissolved

his enchantments, and was now recognized and honored as the man

who had by his unaided might saved the globe from destruction and

its peoples from extinction. Now if you consider that everybody

believed that, and not only believed it, but never even dreamed

of doubting it, you will easily understand that there was not

a person in all Britain that would not have walked fifty miles

to get a sight of me. Of course I was all the talk--all other

subjects were dropped; even the king became suddenly a person of

minor interest and notoriety. Within twenty-four hours the

delegations began to arrive, and from that time onward for a fortnight

they kept coming. The village was crowded, and all the countryside.

I had to go out a dozen times a day and show myself to these

reverent and awe-stricken multitudes. It came to be a great burden,

as to time and trouble, but of course it was at the same time

compensatingly agreeable to be so celebrated and such a center

of homage. It turned Brer Merlin green with envy and spite, which

was a great satisfaction to me. But there was one thing I couldn't

understand--nobody had asked for an autograph. I spoke to Clarence

about it. By George! I had to explain to him what it was. Then

he said nobody in the country could read or write but a few dozen

priests. Land! think of that.

There was another thing that troubled me a little. Those multitudes

presently began to agitate for another miracle. That was natural.

To be able to carry back to their far homes the boast that they

had seen the man who could command the sun, riding in the heavens,

and be obeyed, would make them great in the eyes of their neighbors,

and envied by them all; but to be able to also say they had seen

him work a miracle themselves--why, people would come a distance

to see _them_. The pressure got to be pretty strong. There was

going to be an eclipse of the moon, and I knew the date and hour,

but it was too far away. Two years. I would have given a good

deal for license to hurry it up and use it now when there was

a big market for it. It seemed a great pity to have it wasted so,

and come lagging along at a time when a body wouldn't have any

use for it, as like as not. If it had been booked for only a month

away, I could have sold it short; but, as matters stood, I couldn't

seem to cipher out any way to make it do me any good, so I gave up

trying. Next, Clarence found that old Merlin was making himself

busy on the sly among those people. He was spreading a report that

I was a humbug, and that the reason I didn't accommodate the people

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

something. I presently thought out a plan.

By my authority as executive I threw Merlin into prison--the same

cell I had occupied myself. Then I gave public notice by herald

and trumpet that I should be busy with affairs of state for

a fortnight, but about the end of that time I would take a moment's

leisure and blow up Merlin's stone tower by fires from heaven;

in the meantime, whoso listened to evil reports about me, let him

beware. Furthermore, I would perform but this one miracle at

this time, and no more; if it failed to satisfy and any murmured,

I would turn the murmurers into horses, and make them useful.

Quiet ensued.

I took Clarence into my confidence, to a certain degree, and we

went to work privately. I told him that this was a sort of miracle

that required a trifle of preparation, and that it would be sudden

death to ever talk about these preparations to anybody. That made

his mouth safe enough. Clandestinely we made a few bushels of

first-rate blasting powder, and I superintended my armorers while

they constructed a lightning-rod and some wires. This old stone

tower was very massive--and rather ruinous, too, for it was Roman,

and four hundred years old. Yes, and handsome, after a rude

fashion, and clothed with ivy from base to summit, as with a shirt

of scale mail. It stood on a lonely eminence, in good view from

the castle, and about half a mile away.

Working by night, we stowed the powder in the tower--dug stones

out, on the inside, and buried the powder in the walls themselves,

which were fifteen feet thick at the base. We put in a peck

at a time, in a dozen places. We could have blown up the Tower

of London with these charges. When the thirteenth night was come

we put up our lightning-rod, bedded it in one of the batches of

powder, and ran wires from it to the other batches. Everybody

had shunned that locality from the day of my proclamation, but

on the morning of the fourteenth I thought best to warn the people,

through the heralds, to keep clear away--a quarter of a mile away.

Then added, by command, that at some time during the twenty-four

hours I would consummate the miracle, but would first give a brief

notice; by flags on the castle towers if in the daytime, by

torch-baskets in the same places if at night.

Thunder-showers had been tolerably frequent of late, and I was

not much afraid of a failure; still, I shouldn't have cared for

a delay of a day or two; I should have explained that I was busy

with affairs of state yet, and the people must wait.

Of course, we had a blazing sunny day--almost the first one without

a cloud for three weeks; things always happen so. I kept secluded,

and watched the weather. Clarence dropped in from time to time

and said the public excitement was growing and growing all the

time, and the whole country filling up with human masses as far

as one could see from the battlements. At last the wind sprang up

and a cloud appeared--in the right quarter, too, and just at

nightfall. For a little while I watched that distant cloud spread

and blacken, then I judged it was time for me to appear. I ordered

the torch-baskets to be lit, and Merlin liberated and sent to me.

A quarter of an hour later I ascended the parapet and there found

the king and the court assembled and gazing off in the darkness

toward Merlin's Tower. Already the darkness was so heavy that

one could not see far; these people and the old turrets, being

partly in deep shadow and partly in the red glow from the great

torch-baskets overhead, made a good deal of a picture.

Merlin arrived in a gloomy mood. I said:

"You wanted to burn me alive when I had not done you any harm,

and latterly you have been trying to injure my professional

reputation. Therefore I am going to call down fire and blow up

your tower, but it is only fair to give you a chance; now if you

think you can break my enchantments and ward off the fires, step

to the bat, it's your innings."

"I can, fair sir, and I will. Doubt it not."

He drew an imaginary circle on the stones of the roof, and burnt

a pinch of powder in it, which sent up a small cloud of aromatic

smoke, whereat everybody fell back and began to cross themselves

and get uncomfortable. Then he began to mutter and make passes

in the air with his hands. He worked himself up slowly and

gradually into a sort of frenzy, and got to thrashing around with

his arms like the sails of a windmill. By this time the storm had

about reached us; the gusts of wind were flaring the torches and

making the shadows swash about, the first heavy drops of rain

were falling, the world abroad was black as pitch, the lightning

began to wink fitfully. Of course, my rod would be loading itself

now. In fact, things were imminent. So I said:

"You have had time enough. I have given you every advantage,

and not interfered. It is plain your magic is weak. It is only

fair that I begin now."

I made about three passes in the air, and then there was an awful

crash and that old tower leaped into the sky in chunks, along

with a vast volcanic fountain of fire that turned night to noonday,

and showed a thousand acres of human beings groveling on the ground

in a general collapse of consternation. Well, it rained mortar and

masonry the rest of the week. This was the report; but probably

the facts would have modified it.

It was an effective miracle. The great bothersome temporary

population vanished. There were a good many thousand tracks

in the mud the next morning, but they were all outward bound.

If I had advertised another miracle I couldn't have raised an

audience with a sheriff.

Merlin's stock was flat. The king wanted to stop his wages; he

even wanted to banish him, but I interfered. I said he would be

useful to work the weather, and attend to small matters like that,

and I would give him a lift now and then when his poor little

parlor-magic soured on him. There wasn't a rag of his tower left,

but I had the government rebuild it for him, and advised him

to take boarders; but he was too high-toned for that. And as for

being grateful, he never even said thank you. He was a rather

hard lot, take him how you might; but then you couldn't fairly

expect a man to be sweet that had been set back so.

CHAPTER VIII

THE BOSS

To be vested with enormous authority is a fine thing; but to have

the on-looking world consent to it is a finer. The tower episode

solidified my power, and made it impregnable. If any were perchance

disposed to be jealous and critical before that, they experienced

a change of heart, now. There was not any one in the kingdom

who would have considered it good judgment to meddle with my matters.

I was fast getting adjusted to my situation and circumstances.

For a time, I used to wake up, mornings, and smile at my "dream,"

and listen for the Colt's factory whistle; but that sort of thing

played itself out, gradually, and at last I was fully able to realize

that I was actually living in the sixth century, and in Arthur's

court, not a lunatic asylum. After that, I was just as much

at home in that century as I could have been in any other; and

as for preference, I wouldn't have traded it for the twentieth.

Look at the opportunities here for a man of knowledge, brains,

pluck, and enterprise to sail in and grow up with the country.

The grandest field that ever was; and all my own; not a competitor;

not a man who wasn't a baby to me in acquirements and capacities;

whereas, what would I amount to in the twentieth century? I should

be foreman of a factory, that is about all; and could drag a seine

down street any day and catch a hundred better men than myself.

What a jump I had made! I couldn't keep from thinking about it,

and contemplating it, just as one does who has struck oil. There

was nothing back of me that could approach it, unless it might be

Joseph's case; and Joseph's only approached it, it didn't equal

it, quite. For it stands to reason that as Joseph's splendid

financial ingenuities advantaged nobody but the king, the general

public must have regarded him with a good deal of disfavor, whereas

I had done my entire public a kindness in sparing the sun, and was

popular by reason of it.

I was no shadow of a king; I was the substance; the king himself

was the shadow. My power was colossal; and it was not a mere

name, as such things have generally been, it was the genuine

article. I stood here, at the very spring and source of the second

great period of the world's history; and could see the trickling

stream of that history gather and deepen and broaden, and roll

its mighty tides down the far centuries; and I could note the

upspringing of adventurers like myself in the shelter of its long

array of thrones: De Montforts, Gavestons, Mortimers, Villierses;

the war-making, campaign-directing wantons of France, and Charles

the Second's scepter-wielding drabs; but nowhere in the procession

was my full-sized fellow visible. I was a Unique; and glad to know

that that fact could not be dislodged or challenged for thirteen

centuries and a half, for sure. Yes, in power I was equal to

the king. At the same time there was another power that was

a trifle stronger than both of us put together. That was the Church.

I do not wish to disguise that fact. I couldn't, if I wanted to.

But never mind about that, now; it will show up, in its proper

place, later on. It didn't cause me any trouble in the beginning

--at least any of consequence.

Well, it was a curious country, and full of interest. And the

people! They were the quaintest and simplest and trustingest race;

why, they were nothing but rabbits. It was pitiful for a person

born in a wholesome free atmosphere to listen to their humble

and hearty outpourings of loyalty toward their king and Church

and nobility; as if they had any more occasion to love and honor

king and Church and noble than a slave has to love and honor

the lash, or a dog has to love and honor the stranger that kicks him!

Why, dear me, _any_ kind of royalty, howsoever modified, _any_ kind

of aristocracy, howsoever pruned, is rightly an insult; but if you

are born and brought up under that sort of arrangement you probably

never find it out for yourself, and don't believe it when somebody

else tells you. It is enough to make a body ashamed of his race

to think of the sort of froth that has always occupied its thrones

without shadow of right or reason, and the seventh-rate people

that have always figured as its aristocracies--a company of monarchs

and nobles who, as a rule, would have achieved only poverty and

obscurity if left, like their betters, to their own exertions.

The most of King Arthur's British nation were slaves, pure and

simple, and bore that name, and wore the iron collar on their

necks; and the rest were slaves in fact, but without the name;

they imagined themselves men and freemen, and called themselves

so. The truth was, the nation as a body was in the world for one

object, and one only: to grovel before king and Church and noble;

to slave for them, sweat blood for them, starve that they might

be fed, work that they might play, drink misery to the dregs that

they might be happy, go naked that they might wear silks and

jewels, pay taxes that they might be spared from paying them,

be familiar all their lives with the degrading language and postures

of adulation that they might walk in pride and think themselves

the gods of this world. And for all this, the thanks they got were

cuffs and contempt; and so poor-spirited were they that they took

even this sort of attention as an honor.

Inherited ideas are a curious thing, and interesting to observe

and examine. I had mine, the king and his people had theirs.

In both cases they flowed in ruts worn deep by time and habit,

and the man who should have proposed to divert them by reason

and argument would have had a long contract on his hands. For

instance, those people had inherited the idea that all men without

title and a long pedigree, whether they had great natural gifts

and acquirements or hadn't, were creatures of no more consideration

than so many animals, bugs, insects; whereas I had inherited the idea

that human daws who can consent to masquerade in the peacock-shams

of inherited dignities and unearned titles, are of no good but

to be laughed at. The way I was looked upon was odd, but it was

natural. You know how the keeper and the public regard the elephant

in the menagerie: well, that is the idea. They are full of

admiration of his vast bulk and his prodigious strength; they

speak with pride of the fact that he can do a hundred marvels

which are far and away beyond their own powers; and they speak

with the same pride of the fact that in his wrath he is able

to drive a thousand men before him. But does that make him one

of _them_? No; the raggedest tramp in the pit would smile at

the idea. He couldn't comprehend it; couldn't take it in; couldn't

in any remote way conceive of it. Well, to the king, the nobles,

and all the nation, down to the very slaves and tramps, I was

just that kind of an elephant, and nothing more. I was admired,

also feared; but it was as an animal is admired and feared.

The animal is not reverenced, neither was I; I was not even

respected. I had no pedigree, no inherited title; so in the king's

and nobles' eyes I was mere dirt; the people regarded me with

wonder and awe, but there was no reverence mixed with it; through

the force of inherited ideas they were not able to conceive of

anything being entitled to that except pedigree and lordship.

There you see the hand of that awful power, the Roman Catholic

Church. In two or three little centuries it had converted a nation

of men to a nation of worms. Before the day of the Church's

supremacy in the world, men were men, and held their heads up,

and had a man's pride and spirit and independence; and what

of greatness and position a person got, he got mainly by achievement,

not by birth. But then the Church came to the front, with an axe

to grind; and she was wise, subtle, and knew more than one way

to skin a cat--or a nation; she invented "divine right of kings,"

and propped it all around, brick by brick, with the Beatitudes

--wrenching them from their good purpose to make them fortify

an evil one; she preached (to the commoner) humility, obedience

to superiors, the beauty of self-sacrifice; she preached (to the

commoner) meekness under insult; preached (still to the commoner,

always to the commoner) patience, meanness of spirit, non-resistance

under oppression; and she introduced heritable ranks and

aristocracies, and taught all the Christian populations of the earth

to bow down to them and worship them. Even down to my birth-century

that poison was still in the blood of Christendom, and the best

of English commoners was still content to see his inferiors

impudently continuing to hold a number of positions, such as

lordships and the throne, to which the grotesque laws of his country

did not allow him to aspire; in fact, he was not merely contented

with this strange condition of things, he was even able to persuade

himself that he was proud of it. It seems to show that there isn't

anything you can't stand, if you are only born and bred to it.

Of course that taint, that reverence for rank and title, had been

in our American blood, too--I know that; but when I left America

it had disappeared--at least to all intents and purposes. The

remnant of it was restricted to the dudes and dudesses. When

a disease has worked its way down to that level, it may fairly

be said to be out of the system.

But to return to my anomalous position in King Arthur's kingdom.

Here I was, a giant among pigmies, a man among children, a master

intelligence among intellectual moles: by all rational measurement

the one and only actually great man in that whole British world;

and yet there and then, just as in the remote England of my

birth-time, the sheep-witted earl who could claim long descent

from a king's leman, acquired at second-hand from the slums of

London, was a better man than I was. Such a personage was fawned

upon in Arthur's realm and reverently looked up to by everybody,

even though his dispositions were as mean as his intelligence,

and his morals as base as his lineage. There were times when

_he_ could sit down in the king's presence, but I couldn't. I could

have got a title easily enough, and that would have raised me

a large step in everybody's eyes; even in the king's, the giver

of it. But I didn't ask for it; and I declined it when it was

offered. I couldn't have enjoyed such a thing with my notions;

and it wouldn't have been fair, anyway, because as far back as

I could go, our tribe had always been short of the bar sinister.

I couldn't have felt really and satisfactorily fine and proud

and set-up over any title except one that should come from the nation

itself, the only legitimate source; and such an one I hoped to win;

and in the course of years of honest and honorable endeavor, I did

win it and did wear it with a high and clean pride. This title

fell casually from the lips of a blacksmith, one day, in a village,

was caught up as a happy thought and tossed from mouth to mouth

with a laugh and an affirmative vote; in ten days it had swept

the kingdom, and was become as familiar as the king's name. I was

never known by any other designation afterward, whether in the

nation's talk or in grave debate upon matters of state at the

council-board of the sovereign. This title, translated into modern

speech, would be THE BOSS. Elected by the nation. That suited me.

And it was a pretty high title. There were very few THE'S, and

I was one of them. If you spoke of the duke, or the earl, or

the bishop, how could anybody tell which one you meant? But if

you spoke of The King or The Queen or The Boss, it was different.

Well, I liked the king, and as king I respected him--respected

the office; at least respected it as much as I was capable of

respecting any unearned supremacy; but as MEN I looked down upon

him and his nobles--privately. And he and they liked me, and

respected my office; but as an animal, without birth or sham title,

they looked down upon me--and were not particularly private about it,

either. I didn't charge for my opinion about them, and they didn't

charge for their opinion about me: the account was square, the

books balanced, everybody was satisfied.

CHAPTER IX

THE TOURNAMENT

They were always having grand tournaments there at Camelot; and

very stirring and picturesque and ridiculous human bull-fights

they were, too, but just a little wearisome to the practical mind.

However, I was generally on hand--for two reasons: a man must

not hold himself aloof from the things which his friends and his

community have at heart if he would be liked--especially as

a statesman; and both as business man and statesman I wanted

to study the tournament and see if I couldn't invent an improvement

on it. That reminds me to remark, in passing, that the very first

official thing I did, in my administration--and it was on the very

first day of it, too--was to start a patent office; for I knew

that a country without a patent office and good patent laws was

just a crab, and couldn't travel any way but sideways or backways.

Things ran along, a tournament nearly every week; and now and then

the boys used to want me to take a hand--I mean Sir Launcelot and

the rest--but I said I would by and by; no hurry yet, and too much

government machinery to oil up and set to rights and start a-going.

We had one tournament which was continued from day to day during

more than a week, and as many as five hundred knights took part

in it, from first to last. They were weeks gathering. They came

on horseback from everywhere; from the very ends of the country,

and even from beyond the sea; and many brought ladies, and all

brought squires and troops of servants. It was a most gaudy and

gorgeous crowd, as to costumery, and very characteristic of the

country and the time, in the way of high animal spirits, innocent

indecencies of language, and happy-hearted indifference to morals.

It was fight or look on, all day and every day; and sing, gamble,

dance, carouse half the night every night. They had a most noble

good time. You never saw such people. Those banks of beautiful

ladies, shining in their barbaric splendors, would see a knight

sprawl from his horse in the lists with a lanceshaft the thickness

of your ankle clean through him and the blood spouting, and instead

of fainting they would clap their hands and crowd each other for a

better view; only sometimes one would dive into her handkerchief,

and look ostentatiously broken-hearted, and then you could lay

two to one that there was a scandal there somewhere and she was

afraid the public hadn't found it out.

The noise at night would have been annoying to me ordinarily, but

I didn't mind it in the present circumstances, because it kept me

from hearing the quacks detaching legs and arms from the day's

cripples. They ruined an uncommon good old cross-cut saw for me,

and broke the saw-buck, too, but I let it pass. And as for my

axe--well, I made up my mind that the next time I lent an axe

to a surgeon I would pick my century.

I not only watched this tournament from day to day, but detailed

an intelligent priest from my Department of Public Morals and

Agriculture, and ordered him to report it; for it was my purpose

by and by, when I should have gotten the people along far enough,

to start a newspaper. The first thing you want in a new country,

is a patent office; then work up your school system; and after that,

out with your paper. A newspaper has its faults, and plenty of them,

but no matter, it's hark from the tomb for a dead nation, and don't

you forget it. You can't resurrect a dead nation without it; there

isn't any way. So I wanted to sample things, and be finding out

what sort of reporter-material I might be able to rake together out

of the sixth century when I should come to need it.

Well, the priest did very well, considering. He got in all

the details, and that is a good thing in a local item: you see,

he had kept books for the undertaker-department of his church

when he was younger, and there, you know, the money's in the details;

the more details, the more swag: bearers, mutes, candles, prayers

--everything counts; and if the bereaved don't buy prayers enough

you mark up your candles with a forked pencil, and your bill

shows up all right. And he had a good knack at getting in the

complimentary thing here and there about a knight that was likely

to advertise--no, I mean a knight that had influence; and he also

had a neat gift of exaggeration, for in his time he had kept door

for a pious hermit who lived in a sty and worked miracles.

Of course this novice's report lacked whoop and crash and lurid

description, and therefore wanted the true ring; but its antique

wording was quaint and sweet and simple, and full of the fragrances

and flavors of the time, and these little merits made up in a measure

for its more important lacks. Here is an extract from it:

Then Sir Brian de les Isles and Grummore Grummorsum,

knights of the castle, encountered with Sir Aglovale and

Sir Tor, and Sir Tor smote down Sir Grummore Grummorsum

to the earth. Then came Sir Carados of the dolorous

tower, and Sir Turquine, knights of the castle, and

there encountered with them Sir Percivale de Galis

and Sir Lamorak de Galis, that were two brethren, and

there encountered Sir Percivale with Sir Carados, and

either brake their spears unto their hands, and then

Sir Turquine with Sir Lamorak, and either of them smote

down other, horse and all, to the earth, and either

parties rescued other and horsed them again. And Sir

Arnold, and Sir Gauter, knights of the castle,

encountered with Sir Brandiles and Sir Kay, and these

four knights encountered mightily, and brake their

spears to their hands. Then came Sir Pertolope from

the castle, and there encountered with him Sir Lionel,

and there Sir Pertolope the green knight smote down Sir

Lionel, brother to Sir Launcelot. All this was marked

by noble heralds, who bare him best, and their names.

Then Sir Bleobaris brake his spear upon Sir Gareth,

but of that stroke Sir Bleobaris fell to the earth.

When Sir Galihodin saw that, he bad Sir Gareth keep him,

and Sir Gareth smote him to the earth. Then Sir Galihud

gat a spear to avenge his brother, and in the same wise

Sir Gareth served him, and Sir Dinadan and his brother

La Cote Male Taile, and Sir Sagramore le Disirous, and

Sir Dodinas le Savage; all these he bare down with one

spear. When King Aswisance of Ireland saw Sir Gareth

fare so he marvelled what he might be, that one time

seemed green, and another time, at his again coming,

he seemed blue. And thus at every course that he rode

to and fro he changed his color, so that there might

neither king nor knight have ready cognizance of him.

Then Sir Agwisance the King of Ireland encountered

with Sir Gareth, and there Sir Gareth smote him from

his horse, saddle and all. And then came King Carados

of Scotland, and Sir Gareth smote him down horse and

man. And in the same wise he served King Uriens of the

land of Gore. And then there came in Six Bagdemagus,

and Sir Gareth smote him down horse and man to the

earth. And Bagdemagus's son Meliganus brake a spear

upon Sir Gareth mightily and knightly. And then Sir

Galahault the noble prince cried on high, Knight with

the many colors, well hast thou justed; now make thee

ready that I may just with thee. Sir Gareth heard him,

and he gat a great spear, and so they encountered

together, and there the prince brake his spear; but Sir

Gareth smote him upon the left side of the helm, that

he reeled here and there, and he had fallen down had not

his men recovered him. Truly, said King Arthur, that

knight with the many colors is a good knight. Wherefore

the king called unto him Sir Launcelot, and prayed him

to encounter with that knight. Sir, said Launcelot, I

may as well find in my heart for to forbear him at

this time, for he hath had travail enough this day, and

when a good knight doth so well upon some day, it is

no good knight's part to let him of his worship, and,

namely, when he seeth a knight hath done so great

labour; for peradventure, said Sir Launcelot, his

quarrel is here this day, and peradventure he is best

beloved with this lady of all that be here, for I see

well he paineth himself and enforceth him to do great

deeds, and therefore, said Sir Launcelot, as for me,

this day he shall have the honour; though it lay in my

power to put him from it, I would not.

There was an unpleasant little episode that day, which for reasons

of state I struck out of my priest's report. You will have noticed

that Garry was doing some great fighting in the engagement. When

I say Garry I mean Sir Gareth. Garry was my private pet name

for him; it suggests that I had a deep affection for him, and that

was the case. But it was a private pet name only, and never spoken

aloud to any one, much less to him; being a noble, he would not

have endured a familiarity like that from me. Well, to proceed:

I sat in the private box set apart for me as the king's minister.

While Sir Dinadan was waiting for his turn to enter the lists,

he came in there and sat down and began to talk; for he was always

making up to me, because I was a stranger and he liked to have

a fresh market for his jokes, the most of them having reached that

stage of wear where the teller has to do the laughing himself while

the other person looks sick. I had always responded to his efforts

as well as I could, and felt a very deep and real kindness for him,

too, for the reason that if by malice of fate he knew the one

particular anecdote which I had heard oftenest and had most hated

and most loathed all my life, he had at least spared it me. It was

one which I had heard attributed to every humorous person who

had ever stood on American soil, from Columbus down to Artemus Ward.

It was about a humorous lecturer who flooded an ignorant audience

with the killingest jokes for an hour and never got a laugh; and

then when he was leaving, some gray simpletons wrung him gratefully

by the hand and said it had been the funniest thing they had ever

heard, and "it was all they could do to keep from laughin' right

out in meetin'." That anecdote never saw the day that it was

worth the telling; and yet I had sat under the telling of it

hundreds and thousands and millions and billions of times, and

cried and cursed all the way through. Then who can hope to know

what my feelings were, to hear this armor-plated ass start in on

it again, in the murky twilight of tradition, before the dawn of

history, while even Lactantius might be referred to as "the late

Lactantius," and the Crusades wouldn't be born for five hundred

years yet? Just as he finished, the call-boy came; so, haw-hawing

like a demon, he went rattling and clanking out like a crate of

loose castings, and I knew nothing more. It was some minutes

before I came to, and then I opened my eyes just in time to see

Sir Gareth fetch him an awful welt, and I unconsciously out with

the prayer, "I hope to gracious he's killed!" But by ill-luck,

before I had got half through with the words, Sir Gareth crashed

into Sir Sagramor le Desirous and sent him thundering over his

horse's crupper, and Sir Sagramor caught my remark and thought

I meant it for _him_.

Well, whenever one of those people got a thing into his head,

there was no getting it out again. I knew that, so I saved my

breath, and offered no explanations. As soon as Sir Sagramor

got well, he notified me that there was a little account to settle

between us, and he named a day three or four years in the future;

place of settlement, the lists where the offense had been given.

I said I would be ready when he got back. You see, he was going

for the Holy Grail. The boys all took a flier at the Holy Grail

now and then. It was a several years' cruise. They always put in

the long absence snooping around, in the most conscientious way,

though none of them had any idea where the Holy Grail really was,

and I don't think any of them actually expected to find it, or

would have known what to do with it if he _had_ run across it.

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

say; that was all. Every year expeditions went out holy grailing,

and next year relief expeditions went out to hunt for _them_. There

was worlds of reputation in it, but no money. Why, they actually

wanted _me_ to put in! Well, I should smile.

CHAPTER X

BEGINNINGS OF CIVILIZATION

The Round Table soon heard of the challenge, and of course it was

a good deal discussed, for such things interested the boys.

The king thought I ought now to set forth in quest of adventures,

so that I might gain renown and be the more worthy to meet

Sir Sagramor when the several years should have rolled away.

I excused myself for the present; I said it would take me three

or four years yet to get things well fixed up and going smoothly;

then I should be ready; all the chances were that at the end of

that time Sir Sagramor would still be out grailing, so no valuable

time would be lost by the postponement; I should then have been

in office six or seven years, and I believed my system and machinery

would be so well developed that I could take a holiday without

its working any harm.

I was pretty well satisfied with what I had already accomplished.

In various quiet nooks and corners I had the beginnings of all

sorts of industries under way--nuclei of future vast factories,

the iron and steel missionaries of my future civilization. In these

were gathered together the brightest young minds I could find,

and I kept agents out raking the country for more, all the time.

I was training a crowd of ignorant folk into experts--experts

in every sort of handiwork and scientific calling. These nurseries

of mine went smoothly and privately along undisturbed in their

obscure country retreats, for nobody was allowed to come into their

precincts without a special permit--for I was afraid of the Church.

I had started a teacher-factory and a lot of Sunday-schools the

first thing; as a result, I now had an admirable system of graded

schools in full blast in those places, and also a complete variety

of Protestant congregations all in a prosperous and growing

condition. Everybody could be any kind of a Christian he wanted

to; there was perfect freedom in that matter. But I confined public

religious teaching to the churches and the Sunday-schools, permitting

nothing of it in my other educational buildings. I could have

given my own sect the preference and made everybody a Presbyterian

without any trouble, but that would have been to affront a law

of human nature: spiritual wants and instincts are as various in

the human family as are physical appetites, complexions, and

features, and a man is only at his best, morally, when he is

equipped with the religious garment whose color and shape and

size most nicely accommodate themselves to the spiritual complexion,

angularities, and stature of the individual who wears it; and,

besides, I was afraid of a united Church; it makes a mighty power,

the mightiest conceivable, and then when it by and by gets into

selfish hands, as it is always bound to do, it means death to

human liberty and paralysis to human thought.

All mines were royal property, and there were a good many of them.

They had formerly been worked as savages always work mines--holes

grubbed in the earth and the mineral brought up in sacks of hide by

hand, at the rate of a ton a day; but I had begun to put the mining

on a scientific basis as early as I could.

Yes, I had made pretty handsome progress when Sir Sagramor's

challenge struck me.

Four years rolled by--and then! Well, you would never imagine

it in the world. Unlimited power is the ideal thing when it is in

safe hands. The despotism of heaven is the one absolutely perfect

government. An earthly despotism would be the absolutely perfect

earthly government, if the conditions were the same, namely, the

despot the perfectest individual of the human race, and his lease

of life perpetual. But as a perishable perfect man must die, and

leave his despotism in the hands of an imperfect successor, an

earthly despotism is not merely a bad form of government, it is

the worst form that is possible.

My works showed what a despot could do with the resources of

a kingdom at his command. Unsuspected by this dark land, I had

the civilization of the nineteenth century booming under its very

nose! It was fenced away from the public view, but there it was,

a gigantic and unassailable fact--and to be heard from, yet, if

I lived and had luck. There it was, as sure a fact and as substantial

a fact as any serene volcano, standing innocent with its smokeless

summit in the blue sky and giving no sign of the rising hell in its

bowels. My schools and churches were children four years before;

they were grown-up now; my shops of that day were vast factories

now; where I had a dozen trained men then, I had a thousand now;

where I had one brilliant expert then, I had fifty now. I stood

with my hand on the cock, so to speak, ready to turn it on and

flood the midnight world with light at any moment. But I was not

going to do the thing in that sudden way. It was not my policy.

The people could not have stood it; and, moreover, I should have

had the Established Roman Catholic Church on my back in a minute.

No, I had been going cautiously all the while. I had had confidential

agents trickling through the country some time, whose office was

to undermine knighthood by imperceptible degrees, and to gnaw

a little at this and that and the other superstition, and so prepare

the way gradually for a better order of things. I was turning on

my light one-candle-power at a time, and meant to continue to do so.

I had scattered some branch schools secretly about the kingdom,

and they were doing very well. I meant to work this racket more

and more, as time wore on, if nothing occurred to frighten me.

One of my deepest secrets was my West Point--my military academy.

I kept that most jealously out of sight; and I did the same with my

naval academy which I had established at a remote seaport. Both

were prospering to my satisfaction.

Clarence was twenty-two now, and was my head executive, my right

hand. He was a darling; he was equal to anything; there wasn't

anything he couldn't turn his hand to. Of late I had been training

him for journalism, for the time seemed about right for a start

in the newspaper line; nothing big, but just a small weekly for

experimental circulation in my civilization-nurseries. He took

to it like a duck; there was an editor concealed in him, sure.

Already he had doubled himself in one way; he talked sixth century

and wrote nineteenth. His journalistic style was climbing,

steadily; it was already up to the back settlement Alabama mark,

and couldn't be told from the editorial output of that region

either by matter or flavor.

We had another large departure on hand, too. This was a telegraph

and a telephone; our first venture in this line. These wires were

for private service only, as yet, and must be kept private until

a riper day should come. We had a gang of men on the road, working

mainly by night. They were stringing ground wires; we were afraid

to put up poles, for they would attract too much inquiry. Ground

wires were good enough, in both instances, for my wires were

protected by an insulation of my own invention which was perfect.

My men had orders to strike across country, avoiding roads, and

establishing connection with any considerable towns whose lights

betrayed their presence, and leaving experts in charge. Nobody

could tell you how to find any place in the kingdom, for nobody

ever went intentionally to any place, but only struck it by

accident in his wanderings, and then generally left it without

thinking to inquire what its name was. At one time and another

we had sent out topographical expeditions to survey and map the

kingdom, but the priests had always interfered and raised trouble.

So we had given the thing up, for the present; it would be poor

wisdom to antagonize the Church.

As for the general condition of the country, it was as it had been

when I arrived in it, to all intents and purposes. I had made

changes, but they were necessarily slight, and they were not

noticeable. Thus far, I had not even meddled with taxation,

outside of the taxes which provided the royal revenues. I had

systematized those, and put the service on an effective and

righteous basis. As a result, these revenues were already quadrupled,

and yet the burden was so much more equably distributed than

before, that all the kingdom felt a sense of relief, and the praises

of my administration were hearty and general.

Personally, I struck an interruption, now, but I did not mind it,

it could not have happened at a better time. Earlier it could

have annoyed me, but now everything was in good hands and swimming

right along. The king had reminded me several times, of late, that

the postponement I had asked for, four years before, had about

run out now. It was a hint that I ought to be starting out to seek

adventures and get up a reputation of a size to make me worthy

of the honor of breaking a lance with Sir Sagramor, who was still

out grailing, but was being hunted for by various relief expeditions,

and might be found any year, now. So you see I was expecting

this interruption; it did not take me by surprise.

CHAPTER XI

THE YANKEE IN SEARCH OF ADVENTURES

There never was such a country for wandering liars; and they were

of both sexes. Hardly a month went by without one of these tramps

arriving; and generally loaded with a tale about some princess or

other wanting help to get her out of some far-away castle where

she was held in captivity by a lawless scoundrel, usually a giant.

Now you would think that the first thing the king would do after

listening to such a novelette from an entire stranger, would be

to ask for credentials--yes, and a pointer or two as to locality

of castle, best route to it, and so on. But nobody ever thought

of so simple and common-sense a thing at that. No, everybody

swallowed these people's lies whole, and never asked a question

of any sort or about anything. Well, one day when I was not

around, one of these people came along--it was a she one, this

time--and told a tale of the usual pattern. Her mistress was

a captive in a vast and gloomy castle, along with forty-four other

young and beautiful girls, pretty much all of them princesses;

they had been languishing in that cruel captivity for twenty-six

years; the masters of the castle were three stupendous brothers,

each with four arms and one eye--the eye in the center of the

forehead, and as big as a fruit. Sort of fruit not mentioned;

their usual slovenliness in statistics.

Would you believe it? The king and the whole Round Table were

in raptures over this preposterous opportunity for adventure.

Every knight of the Table jumped for the chance, and begged for it;

but to their vexation and chagrin the king conferred it upon me,

who had not asked for it at all.

By an effort, I contained my joy when Clarence brought me the news.

But he--he could not contain his. His mouth gushed delight and

gratitude in a steady discharge--delight in my good fortune,

gratitude to the king for this splendid mark of his favor for me.

He could keep neither his legs nor his body still, but pirouetted

about the place in an airy ecstasy of happiness.

On my side, I could have cursed the kindness that conferred upon

me this benefaction, but I kept my vexation under the surface

for policy's sake, and did what I could to let on to be glad.

Indeed, I _said_ I was glad. And in a way it was true; I was as

glad as a person is when he is scalped.

Well, one must make the best of things, and not waste time with

useless fretting, but get down to business and see what can be

done. In all lies there is wheat among the chaff; I must get at

the wheat in this case: so I sent for the girl and she came. She

was a comely enough creature, and soft and modest, but, if signs

went for anything, she didn't know as much as a lady's watch. I said:

"My dear, have you been questioned as to particulars?"

She said she hadn't.

"Well, I didn't expect you had, but I thought I would ask, to make

sure; it's the way I've been raised. Now you mustn't take it

unkindly if I remind you that as we don't know you, we must go

a little slow. You may be all right, of course, and we'll hope

that you are; but to take it for granted isn't business. _You_

understand that. I'm obliged to ask you a few questions; just

answer up fair and square, and don't be afraid. Where do you

live, when you are at home?"

"In the land of Moder, fair sir."

"Land of Moder. I don't remember hearing of it before.

Parents living?"

"As to that, I know not if they be yet on live, sith it is many

years that I have lain shut up in the castle."

"Your name, please?"

"I hight the Demoiselle Alisande la Carteloise, an it please you."

"Do you know anybody here who can identify you?"

"That were not likely, fair lord, I being come hither now for

the first time."

"Have you brought any letters--any documents--any proofs that

you are trustworthy and truthful?"

"Of a surety, no; and wherefore should I? Have I not a tongue,

and cannot I say all that myself?"

"But _your_ saying it, you know, and somebody else's saying it,

is different."

"Different? How might that be? I fear me I do not understand."

"Don't _understand_? Land of--why, you see--you see--why, great Scott,

can't you understand a little thing like that? Can't you understand

the difference between your--_why_ do you look so innocent and idiotic!"

"I? In truth I know not, but an it were the will of God."

"Yes, yes, I reckon that's about the size of it. Don't mind my

seeming excited; I'm not. Let us change the subject. Now as

to this castle, with forty-five princesses in it, and three ogres

at the head of it, tell me--where is this harem?"

"Harem?"

"The _castle_, you understand; where is the castle?"

"Oh, as to that, it is great, and strong, and well beseen, and

lieth in a far country. Yes, it is many leagues."

"_How_ many?"

"Ah, fair sir, it were woundily hard to tell, they are so many,

and do so lap the one upon the other, and being made all in the

same image and tincted with the same color, one may not know

the one league from its fellow, nor how to count them except

they be taken apart, and ye wit well it were God's work to do

that, being not within man's capacity; for ye will note--"

"Hold on, hold on, never mind about the distance; _whereabouts_

does the castle lie? What's the direction from here?"

"Ah, please you sir, it hath no direction from here; by reason

that the road lieth not straight, but turneth evermore; wherefore

the direction of its place abideth not, but is some time under

the one sky and anon under another, whereso if ye be minded that

it is in the east, and wend thitherward, ye shall observe that

the way of the road doth yet again turn upon itself by the space

of half a circle, and this marvel happing again and yet again and

still again, it will grieve you that you had thought by vanities

of the mind to thwart and bring to naught the will of Him that

giveth not a castle a direction from a place except it pleaseth

Him, and if it please Him not, will the rather that even all castles

and all directions thereunto vanish out of the earth, leaving the

places wherein they tarried desolate and vacant, so warning His

creatures that where He will He will, and where He will not He--"

"Oh, that's all right, that's all right, give us a rest; never mind

about the direction, _hang_ the direction--I beg pardon, I beg

a thousand pardons, I am not well to-day; pay no attention when

I soliloquize, it is an old habit, an old, bad habit, and hard

to get rid of when one's digestion is all disordered with eating

food that was raised forever and ever before he was born; good

land! a man can't keep his functions regular on spring chickens

thirteen hundred years old. But come--never mind about that;

let's--have you got such a thing as a map of that region about

you? Now a good map--"

"Is it peradventure that manner of thing which of late the unbelievers

have brought from over the great seas, which, being boiled in oil,

and an onion and salt added thereto, doth--"

"What, a map? What are you talking about? Don't you know what

a map is? There, there, never mind, don't explain, I hate

explanations; they fog a thing up so that you can't tell anything

about it. Run along, dear; good-day; show her the way, Clarence."

Oh, well, it was reasonably plain, now, why these donkeys didn't

prospect these liars for details. It may be that this girl had

a fact in her somewhere, but I don't believe you could have sluiced

it out with a hydraulic; nor got it with the earlier forms of

blasting, even; it was a case for dynamite. Why, she was a perfect

ass; and yet the king and his knights had listened to her as if

she had been a leaf out of the gospel. It kind of sizes up the

whole party. And think of the simple ways of this court: this

wandering wench hadn't any more trouble to get access to the king

in his palace than she would have had to get into the poorhouse

in my day and country. In fact, he was glad to see her, glad

to hear her tale; with that adventure of hers to offer, she was

as welcome as a corpse is to a coroner.

Just as I was ending-up these reflections, Clarence came back.

I remarked upon the barren result of my efforts with the girl;

hadn't got hold of a single point that could help me to find

the castle. The youth looked a little surprised, or puzzled,

or something, and intimated that he had been wondering to himself

what I had wanted to ask the girl all those questions for.

"Why, great guns," I said, "don't I want to find the castle? And

how else would I go about it?"

"La, sweet your worship, one may lightly answer that, I ween.

She will go with thee. They always do. She will ride with thee."

"Ride with me? Nonsense!"

"But of a truth she will. She will ride with thee. Thou shalt see."

"What? She browse around the hills and scour the woods with me

--alone--and I as good as engaged to be married? Why, it's scandalous.

Think how it would look."

My, the dear face that rose before me! The boy was eager to know

all about this tender matter. I swore him to secrecy and then

whispered her name--"Puss Flanagan." He looked disappointed,

and said he didn't remember the countess. How natural it was for

the little courtier to give her a rank. He asked me where she lived.

"In East Har--" I came to myself and stopped, a little confused;

then I said, "Never mind, now; I'll tell you some time."

And might he see her? Would I let him see her some day?

It was but a little thing to promise--thirteen hundred years

or so--and he so eager; so I said Yes. But I sighed; I couldn't

help it. And yet there was no sense in sighing, for she wasn't

born yet. But that is the way we are made: we don't reason,

where we feel; we just feel.

My expedition was all the talk that day and that night, and the

boys were very good to me, and made much of me, and seemed to have

forgotten their vexation and disappointment, and come to be as

anxious for me to hive those ogres and set those ripe old virgins

loose as if it were themselves that had the contract. Well, they

_were_ good children--but just children, that is all. And they

gave me no end of points about how to scout for giants, and how

to scoop them in; and they told me all sorts of charms against

enchantments, and gave me salves and other rubbish to put on my

wounds. But it never occurred to one of them to reflect that if

I was such a wonderful necromancer as I was pretending to be,

I ought not to need salves or instructions, or charms against

enchantments, and, least of all, arms and armor, on a foray of any

kind--even against fire-spouting dragons, and devils hot from

perdition, let alone such poor adversaries as these I was after,

these commonplace ogres of the back settlements.

I was to have an early breakfast, and start at dawn, for that was

the usual way; but I had the demon's own time with my armor,

and this delayed me a little. It is troublesome to get into, and

there is so much detail. First you wrap a layer or two of blanket

around your body, for a sort of cushion and to keep off the cold

iron; then you put on your sleeves and shirt of chain mail--these

are made of small steel links woven together, and they form a fabric

so flexible that if you toss your shirt onto the floor, it slumps

into a pile like a peck of wet fish-net; it is very heavy and

is nearly the uncomfortablest material in the world for a night

shirt, yet plenty used it for that--tax collectors, and reformers,

and one-horse kings with a defective title, and those sorts of

people; then you put on your shoes--flat-boats roofed over with

interleaving bands of steel--and screw your clumsy spurs into

the heels. Next you buckle your greaves on your legs, and your

cuisses on your thighs; then come your backplate and your breastplate,

and you begin to feel crowded; then you hitch onto the breastplate

the half-petticoat of broad overlapping bands of steel which hangs

down in front but is scolloped out behind so you can sit down,

and isn't any real improvement on an inverted coal scuttle, either

for looks or for wear, or to wipe your hands on; next you belt

on your sword; then you put your stove-pipe joints onto your arms,

your iron gauntlets onto your hands, your iron rat-trap onto your

head, with a rag of steel web hitched onto it to hang over the back

of your neck--and there you are, snug as a candle in a candle-mould.

This is no time to dance. Well, a man that is packed away like

that is a nut that isn't worth the cracking, there is so little of

the meat, when you get down to it, by comparison with the shell.

The boys helped me, or I never could have got in. Just as we

finished, Sir Bedivere happened in, and I saw that as like as not

I hadn't chosen the most convenient outfit for a long trip. How

stately he looked; and tall and broad and grand. He had on his

head a conical steel casque that only came down to his ears, and

for visor had only a narrow steel bar that extended down to his

upper lip and protected his nose; and all the rest of him, from

neck to heel, was flexible chain mail, trousers and all. But

pretty much all of him was hidden under his outside garment, which

of course was of chain mail, as I said, and hung straight from his

shoulders to his ankles; and from his middle to the bottom, both

before and behind, was divided, so that he could ride and let the

skirts hang down on each side. He was going grailing, and it was

just the outfit for it, too. I would have given a good deal for

that ulster, but it was too late now to be fooling around. The sun

was just up, the king and the court were all on hand to see me off

and wish me luck; so it wouldn't be etiquette for me to tarry.

You don't get on your horse yourself; no, if you tried it you

would get disappointed. They carry you out, just as they carry

a sun-struck man to the drug store, and put you on, and help get

you to rights, and fix your feet in the stirrups; and all the while

you do feel so strange and stuffy and like somebody else--like

somebody that has been married on a sudden, or struck by lightning,

or something like that, and hasn't quite fetched around yet, and

is sort of numb, and can't just get his bearings. Then they

stood up the mast they called a spear, in its socket by my left

foot, and I gripped it with my hand; lastly they hung my shield

around my neck, and I was all complete and ready to up anchor

and get to sea. Everybody was as good to me as they could be,

and a maid of honor gave me the stirrup-cup her own self. There was

nothing more to do now, but for that damsel to get up behind me on

a pillion, which she did, and put an arm or so around me to hold on.

And so we started, and everybody gave us a goodbye and waved their

handkerchiefs or helmets. And everybody we met, going down the hill

and through the village was respectful to us, except some shabby

little boys on the outskirts. They said:

"Oh, what a guy!" And hove clods at us.

In my experience boys are the same in all ages. They don't respect

anything, they don't care for anything or anybody. They say

"Go up, baldhead" to the prophet going his unoffending way in

the gray of antiquity; they sass me in the holy gloom of the

Middle Ages; and I had seen them act the same way in Buchanan's

administration; I remember, because I was there and helped. The

prophet had his bears and settled with his boys; and I wanted

to get down and settle with mine, but it wouldn't answer, because

I couldn't have got up again. I hate a country without a derrick.

CHAPTER XII

SLOW TORTURE

Straight off, we were in the country. It was most lovely and

pleasant in those sylvan solitudes in the early cool morning

in the first freshness of autumn. From hilltops we saw fair

green valleys lying spread out below, with streams winding through

them, and island groves of trees here and there, and huge lonely

oaks scattered about and casting black blots of shade; and beyond

the valleys we saw the ranges of hills, blue with haze, stretching

away in billowy perspective to the horizon, with at wide intervals

a dim fleck of white or gray on a wave-summit, which we knew was

a castle. We crossed broad natural lawns sparkling with dew,

and we moved like spirits, the cushioned turf giving out no sound

of footfall; we dreamed along through glades in a mist of green

light that got its tint from the sun-drenched roof of leaves

overhead, and by our feet the clearest and coldest of runlets

went frisking and gossiping over its reefs and making a sort of

whispering music, comfortable to hear; and at times we left the

world behind and entered into the solemn great deeps and rich

gloom of the forest, where furtive wild things whisked and scurried

by and were gone before you could even get your eye on the place

where the noise was; and where only the earliest birds were turning

out and getting to business with a song here and a quarrel yonder

and a mysterious far-off hammering and drumming for worms on

a tree trunk away somewhere in the impenetrable remotenesses of

the woods. And by and by out we would swing again into the glare.

About the third or fourth or fifth time that we swung out into

the glare--it was along there somewhere, a couple of hours or so

after sun-up--it wasn't as pleasant as it had been. It was

beginning to get hot. This was quite noticeable. We had a very

long pull, after that, without any shade. Now it is curious how

progressively little frets grow and multiply after they once get

a start. Things which I didn't mind at all, at first, I began

to mind now--and more and more, too, all the time. The first

ten or fifteen times I wanted my handkerchief I didn't seem to care;

I got along, and said never mind, it isn't any matter, and dropped

it out of my mind. But now it was different; I wanted it all

the time; it was nag, nag, nag, right along, and no rest; I couldn't

get it out of my mind; and so at last I lost my temper and said

hang a man that would make a suit of armor without any pockets

in it. You see I had my handkerchief in my helmet; and some other

things; but it was that kind of a helmet that you can't take off

by yourself. That hadn't occurred to me when I put it there;

and in fact I didn't know it. I supposed it would be particularly

convenient there. And so now, the thought of its being there,

so handy and close by, and yet not get-at-able, made it all the

worse and the harder to bear. Yes, the thing that you can't get

is the thing that you want, mainly; every one has noticed that.

Well, it took my mind off from everything else; took it clear off,

and centered it in my helmet; and mile after mile, there it stayed,

imagining the handkerchief, picturing the handkerchief; and it

was bitter and aggravating to have the salt sweat keep trickling

down into my eyes, and I couldn't get at it. It seems like a little

thing, on paper, but it was not a little thing at all; it was

the most real kind of misery. I would not say it if it was not so.

I made up my mind that I would carry along a reticule next time,

let it look how it might, and people say what they would. Of course

these iron dudes of the Round Table would think it was scandalous,

and maybe raise Sheol about it, but as for me, give me comfort

first, and style afterwards. So we jogged along, and now and then

we struck a stretch of dust, and it would tumble up in clouds and

get into my nose and make me sneeze and cry; and of course I said

things I oughtn't to have said, I don't deny that. I am not

better than others.

We couldn't seem to meet anybody in this lonesome Britain, not

even an ogre; and, in the mood I was in then, it was well for

the ogre; that is, an ogre with a handkerchief. Most knights

would have thought of nothing but getting his armor; but so I got

his bandanna, he could keep his hardware, for all of me.

Meantime, it was getting hotter and hotter in there. You see,

the sun was beating down and warming up the iron more and more

all the time. Well, when you are hot, that way, every little thing

irritates you. When I trotted, I rattled like a crate of dishes,

and that annoyed me; and moreover I couldn't seem to stand that

shield slatting and banging, now about my breast, now around my

back; and if I dropped into a walk my joints creaked and screeched

in that wearisome way that a wheelbarrow does, and as we didn't

create any breeze at that gait, I was like to get fried in that

stove; and besides, the quieter you went the heavier the iron

settled down on you and the more and more tons you seemed to weigh

every minute. And you had to be always changing hands, and passing

your spear over to the other foot, it got so irksome for one hand

to hold it long at a time.

Well, you know, when you perspire that way, in rivers, there comes

a time when you--when you--well, when you itch. You are inside,

your hands are outside; so there you are; nothing but iron between.

It is not a light thing, let it sound as it may. First it is one

place; then another; then some more; and it goes on spreading and

spreading, and at last the territory is all occupied, and nobody

can imagine what you feel like, nor how unpleasant it is. And

when it had got to the worst, and it seemed to me that I could

not stand anything more, a fly got in through the bars and settled

on my nose, and the bars were stuck and wouldn't work, and I

couldn't get the visor up; and I could only shake my head, which

was baking hot by this time, and the fly--well, you know how a fly

acts when he has got a certainty--he only minded the shaking enough

to change from nose to lip, and lip to ear, and buzz and buzz

all around in there, and keep on lighting and biting, in a way

that a person, already so distressed as I was, simply could not

stand. So I gave in, and got Alisande to unship the helmet and

relieve me of it. Then she emptied the conveniences out of it

and fetched it full of water, and I drank and then stood up, and

she poured the rest down inside the armor. One cannot think how

refreshing it was. She continued to fetch and pour until I was

well soaked and thoroughly comfortable.

It was good to have a rest--and peace. But nothing is quite

perfect in this life, at any time. I had made a pipe a while back,

and also some pretty fair tobacco; not the real thing, but what

some of the Indians use: the inside bark of the willow, dried.

These comforts had been in the helmet, and now I had them again,

but no matches.

Gradually, as the time wore along, one annoying fact was borne in

upon my understanding--that we were weather-bound. An armed novice

cannot mount his horse without help and plenty of it. Sandy was

not enough; not enough for me, anyway. We had to wait until

somebody should come along. Waiting, in silence, would have been

agreeable enough, for I was full of matter for reflection, and

wanted to give it a chance to work. I wanted to try and think out

how it was that rational or even half-rational men could ever

have learned to wear armor, considering its inconveniences; and

how they had managed to keep up such a fashion for generations

when it was plain that what I had suffered to-day they had had

to suffer all the days of their lives. I wanted to think that out;

and moreover I wanted to think out some way to reform this evil

and persuade the people to let the foolish fashion die out; but

thinking was out of the question in the circumstances. You couldn't

think, where Sandy was.

She was a quite biddable creature and good-hearted, but she had

a flow of talk that was as steady as a mill, and made your head

sore like the drays and wagons in a city. If she had had a cork

she would have been a comfort. But you can't cork that kind;

they would die. Her clack was going all day, and you would think

something would surely happen to her works, by and by; but no,

they never got out of order; and she never had to slack up for

words. She could grind, and pump, and churn, and buzz by the week,

and never stop to oil up or blow out. And yet the result was just

nothing but wind. She never had any ideas, any more than a fog

has. She was a perfect blatherskite; I mean for jaw, jaw, jaw,

talk, talk, talk, jabber, jabber, jabber; but just as good as she

could be. I hadn't minded her mill that morning, on account of

having that hornets' nest of other troubles; but more than once

in the afternoon I had to say:

"Take a rest, child; the way you are using up all the domestic air,

the kingdom will have to go to importing it by to-morrow, and it's

a low enough treasury without that."

CHAPTER XIII

FREEMEN

Yes, it is strange how little a while at a time a person can be

contented. Only a little while back, when I was riding and

suffering, what a heaven this peace, this rest, this sweet serenity

in this secluded shady nook by this purling stream would have

seemed, where I could keep perfectly comfortable all the time

by pouring a dipper of water into my armor now and then; yet

already I was getting dissatisfied; partly because I could not

light my pipe--for, although I had long ago started a match factory,

I had forgotten to bring matches with me--and partly because we

had nothing to eat. Here was another illustration of the childlike

improvidence of this age and people. A man in armor always trusted

to chance for his food on a journey, and would have been scandalized

at the idea of hanging a basket of sandwiches on his spear. There

was probably not a knight of all the Round Table combination who

would not rather have died than been caught carrying such a thing

as that on his flagstaff. And yet there could not be anything more

sensible. It had been my intention to smuggle a couple of sandwiches

into my helmet, but I was interrupted in the act, and had to make

an excuse and lay them aside, and a dog got them.

Night approached, and with it a storm. The darkness came on fast.

We must camp, of course. I found a good shelter for the demoiselle

under a rock, and went off and found another for myself. But

I was obliged to remain in my armor, because I could not get it off

by myself and yet could not allow Alisande to help, because it

would have seemed so like undressing before folk. It would not

have amounted to that in reality, because I had clothes on

underneath; but the prejudices of one's breeding are not gotten

rid of just at a jump, and I knew that when it came to stripping

off that bob-tailed iron petticoat I should be embarrassed.