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A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

"--for I saw him once proved at a justs where many knights were gathered, and that time there might no man withstand him.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

Ah, said Sir Gawaine, damsels, methinketh ye are to blame, for it is to suppose he that hung that shield there will not be long therefrom, and then may those knights match him on horseback, and that is more your worship than thus; for I will abide no longer to see a knight's shield dishonored.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

And therewith Sir Uwaine and Sir Gawaine departed a little from them, and then were they ware where Sir Marhaus came riding on a great horse straight toward them.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

And when the twelve damsels saw Sir Marhaus they fled into the turret as they were wild, so that some of them fell by the way.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

Then the one of the knights of the tower dressed his shield, and said on high, Sir Marhaus defend thee.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

And so they ran together that the knight brake his spear on Marhaus, and Sir Marhaus smote him so hard that he brake his neck and the horse's back--"

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

"Well, that is just the trouble about this state of things, it ruins so many horses."

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

"That saw the other knight of the turret, and dressed him toward Marhaus, and they went so eagerly together, that the knight of the turret was soon smitten down, horse and man, stark dead--" "_Another_ horse gone; I tell you it is a custom that ought to be broken up.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

I don't see how people with any feeling can applaud and support it." . .

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

. .

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

"So these two knights came together with great random--" I saw that I had been asleep and missed a chapter, but I didn't say anything.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

I judged that the Irish knight was in trouble with the visitors by this time, and this turned out to be the case.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

"--that Sir Uwaine smote Sir Marhaus that his spear brast in pieces on the shield, and Sir Marhaus smote him so sore that horse and man he bare to the earth, and hurt Sir Uwaine on the left side--"

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

"The truth is, Alisande, these archaics are a little _too_ simple; the vocabulary is too limited, and so, by consequence, descriptions suffer in the matter of variety; they run too much to level Saharas of fact, and not enough to picturesque detail; this throws about them a certain air of the monotonous; in fact the fights are all alike: a couple of people come together with great random --random is a good word, and so is exegesis, for that matter, and so is holocaust, and defalcation, and usufruct and a hundred others, but land!

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

a body ought to discriminate--they come together with great random, and a spear is brast, and one party brake his shield and the other one goes down, horse and man, over his horse-tail and brake his neck, and then the next candidate comes randoming in, and brast _his_ spear, and the other man brast his shield, and down _

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

he_ goes, horse and man, over his horse-tail, and brake _his_ neck, and then there's another elected, and another and another and still another, till the material is all used up; and when you come to figure up results, you can't tell one fight from another, nor who whipped; and as a _picture_, of living, raging, roaring battle, sho!

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

why, it's pale and noiseless--just ghosts scuffling in a fog.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

Dear me, what would this barren vocabulary get out of the mightiest spectacle?--the burning of Rome in Nero's time, for instance?

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

Why, it would merely say, 'Town burned down; no insurance; boy brast a window, fireman brake his neck!'

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

Why, _that_ ain't a picture!"

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

It was a good deal of a lecture, I thought, but it didn't disturb Sandy, didn't turn a feather; her steam soared steadily up again, the minute I took off the lid:

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

"Then Sir Marhaus turned his horse and rode toward Gawaine with his spear.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

And when Sir Gawaine saw that, he dressed his shield, and they aventred their spears, and they came together with all the might of their horses, that either knight smote other so hard in the midst of their shields, but Sir Gawaine's spear brake--" "I knew it would."

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

--"but Sir Marhaus's spear held; and therewith Sir Gawaine and his horse rushed down to the earth--" "Just so--and brake his back."

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

--"and lightly Sir Gawaine rose upon his feet and pulled out his sword, and dressed him toward Sir Marhaus on foot, and therewith either came unto other eagerly, and smote together with their swords, that their shields flew in cantels, and they bruised their helms and their hauberks, and wounded either other.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

But Sir Gawaine, fro it passed nine of the clock, waxed by the space of three hours ever stronger and stronger and thrice his might was increased.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

All this espied Sir Marhaus, and had great wonder how his might increased, and so they wounded other passing sore; and then when it was come noon--" The pelting sing-song of it carried me forward to scenes and sounds of my boyhood days:

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

"N-e-e-ew Haven!

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

ten minutes for refreshments--knductr'll strike the gong-bell two minutes before train leaves--passengers for the Shore-line please take seats in the rear k'yar, this k'yar don't go no furder--_ahh_-pls, _aw_-rnjz, b'_nan_ners, _s-a-n-d_'ches, p--_op_-corn!"

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

--"and waxed past noon and drew toward evensong.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

Sir Gawaine's strength feebled and waxed passing faint, that unnethes he might dure any longer, and Sir Marhaus was then bigger and bigger--" "Which strained his armor, of course; and yet little would one of these people mind a small thing like that."

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

--"and

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

so, Sir Knight, said Sir Marhaus, I have well felt that ye are a passing good knight, and a marvelous man of might as ever I felt any, while it lasteth, and our quarrels are not great, and therefore it were a pity to do you hurt, for I feel you are passing feeble.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

Ah, said Sir Gawaine, gentle knight, ye say the word that I should say.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

And therewith they took off their helms and either kissed other, and there they swore together either to love other as brethren--"

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

But I lost the thread there, and dozed off to slumber, thinking about what a pity it was that men with such superb strength --strength enabling them to stand up cased in cruelly burdensome iron and drenched with perspiration, and hack and batter and bang each other for six hours on a stretch--should not have been born at a time when they could put it to some useful purpose.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

Take a jackass, for instance: a jackass has that kind of strength, and puts it to a useful purpose, and is valuable to this world because he is a jackass; but a nobleman is not valuable because he is a jackass.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

It is a mixture that is always ineffectual, and should never have been attempted in the first place.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

And yet, once you start a mistake, the trouble is done and you never know what is going to come of it.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

When I came to myself again and began to listen, I perceived that I had lost another chapter, and that Alisande had wandered a long way off with her people.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

"And so they rode and came into a deep valley full of stones, and thereby they saw a fair stream of water; above thereby was the head of the stream, a fair fountain, and three damsels sitting thereby.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

In this country, said Sir Marhaus, came never knight since it was christened, but he found strange adventures--" "This is not good form, Alisande.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

Sir Marhaus the king's son of Ireland talks like all the rest; you ought to give him a brogue, or at least a characteristic expletive; by this means one would recognize him as soon as he spoke, without his ever being named.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

It is a common literary device with the great authors.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

You should make him say, 'In this country, be jabers, came never knight since it was christened, but he found strange adventures, be jabers.'

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

You see how much better that sounds."

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

--"came never knight but he found strange adventures, be jabers.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

Of a truth it doth indeed, fair lord, albeit 'tis passing hard to say, though peradventure that will not tarry but better speed with usage.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

And then they rode to the damsels, and either saluted other, and the eldest had a garland of gold about her head, and she was threescore winter of age or more--" "The _damsel_ was?"

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

"Even so, dear lord--and her hair was white under the garland--" "Celluloid teeth, nine dollars a set, as like as not--the loose-fit kind, that go up and down like a portcullis when you eat, and fall out when you laugh."

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

"The second damsel was of thirty winter of age, with a circlet of gold about her head.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

The third damsel was but fifteen year of age--" Billows of thought came rolling over my soul, and the voice faded out of my hearing!

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

Fifteen! Break--my heart!

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

oh, my lost darling!

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

Just her age who was so gentle, and lovely, and all the world to me, and whom I shall never see again!

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

How the thought of her carries me back over wide seas of memory to a vague dim time, a happy time, so many, many centuries hence, when I used to wake in the soft summer mornings, out of sweet dreams of her, and say "Hello, Central!"

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

just to hear her dear voice come melting back to me with a "Hello, Hank!"

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

that was music of the spheres to my enchanted ear.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

She got three dollars a week, but she was worth it.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

I could not follow Alisande's further explanation of who our captured knights were, now--I mean in case she should ever get to explaining who they were.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

My interest was gone, my thoughts were far away, and sad.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

By fitful glimpses of the drifting tale, caught here and there and now and then, I merely noted in a vague way that each of these three knights took one of these three damsels up behind him on his horse, and one rode north, another east, the other south, to seek adventures, and meet again and lie, after year and day.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

Year and day--and without baggage.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

It was of a piece with the general simplicity of the country.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

The sun was now setting.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

It was about three in the afternoon when Alisande had begun to tell me who the cowboys were; so she had made pretty good progress with it--for her.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

She would arrive some time or other, no doubt, but she was not a person who could be hurried.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

We were approaching a castle which stood on high ground; a huge, strong, venerable structure, whose gray towers and battlements were charmingly draped with ivy, and whose whole majestic mass was drenched with splendors flung from the sinking sun.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

It was the largest castle we had seen, and so I thought it might be the one we were after, but Sandy said no.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

She did not know who owned it; she said she had passed it without calling, when she went down to Camelot.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

CHAPTER XVI MORGAN LE FAY If knights errant were to be believed, not all castles were desirable places to seek hospitality in.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

As a matter of fact, knights errant were _not_ persons to be believed--that is, measured by modern standards of veracity; yet, measured by the standards of their own time, and scaled accordingly, you got the truth.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

It was very simple: you discounted a statement ninety-seven per cent; the rest was fact.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

Now after making this allowance, the truth remained that if I could find out something about a castle before ringing the door-bell--I mean hailing the warders--it was the sensible thing to do.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

So I was pleased when I saw in the distance a horseman making the bottom turn of the road that wound down from this castle.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

As we approached each other, I saw that he wore a plumed helmet, and seemed to be otherwise clothed in steel, but bore a curious addition also--a stiff square garment like a herald's tabard.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

However, I had to smile at my own forgetfulness when I got nearer and read this sign on his tabard: "Persimmon's Soap -- All the Prime-Donna Use It."

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

That was a little idea of my own, and had several wholesome purposes in view toward the civilizing and uplifting of this nation.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

In the first place, it was a furtive, underhand blow at this nonsense of knight errantry, though nobody suspected that but me.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

I had started a number of these people out--the bravest knights I could get--each sandwiched between bulletin-boards bearing one device or another, and I judged that by and by when they got to be numerous enough they would begin to look ridiculous; and then, even the steel-clad ass that _hadn't_

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

any board would himself begin to look ridiculous because he was out of the fashion.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

Secondly, these missionaries would gradually, and without creating suspicion or exciting alarm, introduce a rudimentary cleanliness among the nobility, and from them it would work down to the people, if the priests could be kept quiet.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

This would undermine the Church.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

I mean would be a step toward that.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

Next, education--next, freedom --and then she would begin to crumble.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

It being my conviction that any Established Church is an established crime, an established slave-pen, I had no scruples, but was willing to assail it in any way or with any weapon that promised to hurt it.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

Why, in my own former day--in remote centuries not yet stirring in the womb of time--there were old Englishmen who imagined that they had been born in a free country: a "free" country with the Corporation Act and the Test still in force in it--timbers propped against men's liberties and dishonored consciences to shore up an Established Anachronism with.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

My missionaries were taught to spell out the gilt signs on their tabards--the showy gilding was a neat idea, I could have got the king to wear a bulletin-board for the sake of that barbaric splendor--they were to spell out these signs and then explain to the lords and ladies what soap was; and if the lords and ladies were afraid of it, get them to try it on a dog.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

The missionary's next move was to get the family together and try it on himself; he was to stop at no experiment, however desperate, that could convince the nobility that soap was harmless; if any final doubt remained, he must catch a hermit--the woods were full of them; saints they called themselves, and saints they were believed to be.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

They were unspeakably holy, and worked miracles, and everybody stood in awe of them.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

If a hermit could survive a wash, and that failed to convince a duke, give him up, let him alone.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

Whenever my missionaries overcame a knight errant on the road they washed him, and when he got well they swore him to go and get a bulletin-board and disseminate soap and civilization the rest of his days.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

As a consequence the workers in the field were increasing by degrees, and the reform was steadily spreading.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

My soap factory felt the strain early.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

At first I had only two hands; but before I had left home I was already employing fifteen, and running night and day; and the atmospheric result was getting so pronounced that the king went sort of fainting and gasping around and said he did not believe he could stand it much longer, and Sir Launcelot got so that he did hardly anything but walk up and down the roof and swear, although I told him it was worse up there than anywhere else, but he said he wanted plenty of air; and he was always complaining that a palace was no place for a soap factory anyway, and said if a man was to start one in his house he would be damned if he wouldn't strangle him.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

There were ladies present, too, but much these people ever cared for that; they would swear before children, if the wind was their way when the factory was going.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

This missionary knight's name was La Cote Male Taile, and he said that this castle was the abode of Morgan le Fay, sister of King Arthur, and wife of King Uriens, monarch of a realm about as big as the District of Columbia--you could stand in the middle of it and throw bricks into the next kingdom.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

"Kings" and "Kingdoms" were as thick in Britain as they had been in little Palestine in Joshua's time, when people had to sleep with their knees pulled up because they couldn't stretch out without a passport.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

La Cote was much depressed, for he had scored here the worst failure of his campaign.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 3.

He had not worked off a cake; yet he had tried all the tricks of the trade, even to the washing of a hermit; but the hermit died.