A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court - (10)

I had had enough of this grisly place by this time, and wanted to leave, but I couldn't, because I had something on my mind that my conscience kept prodding me about, and wouldn't let me forget. If I had the remaking of man, he wouldn't have any conscience. It is one of the most disagreeable things connected with a person; and although it certainly does a great deal of good, it cannot be said to pay, in the long run; it would be much better to have less good and more comfort.  Still, this is only my opinion, and I am only one man; others, with less experience, may think differently.  They have a right to their view.  I only stand to this: I have noticed my conscience for many years, and I know it is more trouble and bother to me than anything else I started with.  I suppose that in the beginning I prized it, because we prize anything that is ours; and yet how foolish it was to think so. If we look at it in another way, we see how absurd it is: if I had an anvil in me would I prize it?  Of course not.  And yet when you come to think, there is no real difference between a conscience and an anvil--I mean for comfort.  I have noticed it a thousand times.  And you could dissolve an anvil with acids, when you couldn't stand it any longer; but there isn't any way that you can work off a conscience--at least so it will stay worked off; not that I know of, anyway.
    There was something I wanted to do before leaving, but it was a disagreeable matter, and I hated to go at it.  Well, it bothered me all the morning.  I could have mentioned it to the old king, but what would be the use?--he was but an extinct volcano; he had been active in his time, but his fire was out, this good while, he was only a stately ash-pile now; gentle enough, and kindly enough for my purpose, without doubt, but not usable.  He was nothing, this so-called king: the queen was the only power there. And she was a Vesuvius.  As a favor, she might consent to warm a flock of sparrows for you, but then she might take that very opportunity to turn herself loose and bury a city.  However, I reflected that as often as any other way, when you are expecting the worst, you get something that is not so bad, after all.
    So I braced up and placed my matter before her royal Highness. I said I had been having a general jail-delivery at Camelot and among neighboring castles, and with her permission I would like to examine her collection, her bric-a-brac--that is to say, her prisoners.  She resisted; but I was expecting that.  But she finally consented.  I was expecting that, too, but not so soon.  That about ended my discomfort.  She called her guards and torches, and we went down into the dungeons.  These were down under the castle's foundations, and mainly were small cells hollowed out of the living rock.  Some of these cells had no light at all.  In one of them was a woman, in foul rags, who sat on the ground, and would not answer a question or speak a word, but only looked up at us once or twice, through a cobweb of tangled hair, as if to see what casual thing it might be that was disturbing with sound and light the meaningless dull dream that was become her life; after that, she sat bowed, with her dirt-caked fingers idly interlocked in her lap, and gave no further sign.  This poor rack of bones was a woman of middle age, apparently; but only apparently; she had been there nine years, and was eighteen when she entered.  She was a commoner, and had been sent here on her bridal night by Sir Breuse Sance Pite, a neighboring lord whose vassal her father was, and to which said lord she had refused what has since been called le droit du seigneur, and, moreover, had opposed violence to violence and spilt half a gill of his almost sacred blood.  The young husband had interfered at that point, believing the bride's life in danger, and had flung the noble out into the midst of the humble and trembling wedding guests, in the parlor, and left him there astonished at this strange treatment, and implacably embittered against both bride and groom.  The said lord being cramped for dungeon-room had asked the queen to accommodate his two criminals, and here in her bastile they had been ever since; hither, indeed, they had come before their crime was an hour old, and had never seen each other since.  Here they were, kenneled like toads in the same rock; they had passed nine pitch dark years within fifty feet of each other, yet neither knew whether the other was alive or not. All the first years, their only question had been--asked with beseechings and tears that might have moved stones, in time, perhaps, but hearts are not stones: “Is he alive?”  “Is she alive?” But they had never got an answer; and at last that question was not asked any more--or any other.
    I wanted to see the man, after hearing all this.  He was thirty-four years old, and looked sixty.  He sat upon a squared block of stone, with his head bent down, his forearms resting on his knees, his long hair hanging like a fringe before his face, and he was muttering to himself.  He raised his chin and looked us slowly over, in a listless dull way, blinking with the distress of the torchlight, then dropped his head and fell to muttering again and took no further notice of us.  There were some pathetically suggestive dumb witnesses present.  On his wrists and ankles were cicatrices, old smooth scars, and fastened to the stone on which he sat was a chain with manacles and fetters attached; but this apparatus lay idle on the ground, and was thick with rust.  Chains cease to be needed after the spirit has gone out of a prisoner.
    I could not rouse the man; so I said we would take him to her, and see--to the bride who was the fairest thing in the earth to him, once--roses, pearls, and dew made flesh, for him; a wonder-work, the master-work of nature: with eyes like no other eyes, and voice like no other voice, and a freshness, and lithe young grace, and beauty, that belonged properly to the creatures of dreams--as he thought--and to no other.  The sight of her would set his stagnant blood leaping; the sight of her--
    But it was a disappointment.  They sat together on the ground and looked dimly wondering into each other's faces a while, with a sort of weak animal curiosity; then forgot each other's presence, and dropped their eyes, and you saw that they were away again and wandering in some far land of dreams and shadows that we know nothing about.
    I had them taken out and sent to their friends.  The queen did not like it much.  Not that she felt any personal interest in the matter, but she thought it disrespectful to Sir Breuse Sance Pite.  However, I assured her that if he found he couldn't stand it I would fix him so that he could.
    I set forty-seven prisoners loose out of those awful rat-holes, and left only one in captivity.  He was a lord, and had killed another lord, a sort of kinsman of the queen.  That other lord had ambushed him to assassinate him, but this fellow had got the best of him and cut his throat.  However, it was not for that that I left him jailed, but for maliciously destroying the only public well in one of his wretched villages.  The queen was bound to hang him for killing her kinsman, but I would not allow it: it was no crime to kill an assassin.  But I said I was willing to let her hang him for destroying the well; so she concluded to put up with that, as it was better than nothing.
    Dear me, for what trifling offenses the most of those forty-seven men and women were shut up there!  Indeed, some were there for no distinct offense at all, but only to gratify somebody's spite; and not always the queen's by any means, but a friend's.  The newest prisoner's crime was a mere remark which he had made.  He said he believed that men were about all alike, and one man as good as another, barring clothes.  He said he believed that if you were to strip the nation naked and send a stranger through the crowd, he couldn't tell the king from a quack doctor, nor a duke from a hotel clerk.  Apparently here was a man whose brains had not been reduced to an ineffectual mush by idiotic training.  I set him loose and sent him to the Factory.
    Some of the cells carved in the living rock were just behind the face of the precipice, and in each of these an arrow-slit had been pierced outward to the daylight, and so the captive had a thin ray from the blessed sun for his comfort.  The case of one of these poor fellows was particularly hard.  From his dusky swallow's hole high up in that vast wall of native rock he could peer out through the arrow-slit and see his own home off yonder in the valley; and for twenty-two years he had watched it, with heartache and longing, through that crack.  He could see the lights shine there at night, and in the daytime he could see figures go in and come out--his wife and children, some of them, no doubt, though he could not make out at that distance.  In the course of years he noted festivities there, and tried to rejoice, and wondered if they were weddings or what they might be.  And he noted funerals; and they wrung his heart.  He could make out the coffin, but he could not determine its size, and so could not tell whether it was wife or child.  He could see the procession form, with priests and mourners, and move solemnly away, bearing the secret with them.  He had left behind him five children and a wife; and in nineteen years he had seen five funerals issue, and none of them humble enough in pomp to denote a servant.  So he had lost five of his treasures; there must still be one remaining--one now infinitely, unspeakably precious,--but which one? wife, or child? That was the question that tortured him, by night and by day, asleep and awake.  Well, to have an interest, of some sort, and half a ray of light, when you are in a dungeon, is a great support to the body and preserver of the intellect.  This man was in pretty good condition yet.  By the time he had finished telling me his distressful tale, I was in the same state of mind that you would have been in yourself, if you have got average human curiosity; that is to say, I was as burning up as he was to find out which member of the family it was that was left.  So I took him over home myself; and an amazing kind of a surprise party it was, too --typhoons and cyclones of frantic joy, and whole Niagaras of happy tears; and by George! we found the aforetime young matron graying toward the imminent verge of her half century, and the babies all men and women, and some of them married and experimenting familywise themselves--for not a soul of the tribe was dead!  Conceive of the ingenious devilishness of that queen: she had a special hatred for this prisoner, and she had invented all those funerals herself, to scorch his heart with; and the sublimest stroke of genius of the whole thing was leaving the family-invoice a funeral short, so as to let him wear his poor old soul out guessing.
    But for me, he never would have got out.  Morgan le Fay hated him with her whole heart, and she never would have softened toward him. And yet his crime was committed more in thoughtlessness than deliberate depravity.  He had said she had red hair.  Well, she had; but that was no way to speak of it.  When red-headed people are above a certain social grade their hair is auburn.
    Consider it: among these forty-seven captives there were five whose names, offenses, and dates of incarceration were no longer known!  One woman and four men--all bent, and wrinkled, and mind-extinguished patriarchs.  They themselves had long ago forgotten these details; at any rate they had mere vague theories about them, nothing definite and nothing that they repeated twice in the same way.  The succession of priests whose office it had been to pray daily with the captives and remind them that God had put them there, for some wise purpose or other, and teach them that patience, humbleness, and submission to oppression was what He loved to see in parties of a subordinate rank, had traditions about these poor old human ruins, but nothing more.  These traditions went but little way, for they concerned the length of the incarceration only, and not the names of the offenses.  And even by the help of tradition the only thing that could be proven was that none of the five had seen daylight for thirty-five years: how much longer this privation has lasted was not guessable.  The king and the queen knew nothing about these poor creatures, except that they were heirlooms, assets inherited, along with the throne, from the former firm.  Nothing of their history had been transmitted with their persons, and so the inheriting owners had considered them of no value, and had felt no interest in them.  I said to the queen:
    “Then why in the world didn't you set them free?”
    The question was a puzzler.  She didn't know why she hadn't, the thing had never come up in her mind.  So here she was, forecasting the veritable history of future prisoners of the Castle d'If, without knowing it.  It seemed plain to me now, that with her training, those inherited prisoners were merely property--nothing more, nothing less.  Well, when we inherit property, it does not occur to us to throw it away, even when we do not value it.
    When I brought my procession of human bats up into the open world and the glare of the afternoon sun--previously blindfolding them, in charity for eyes so long untortured by light--they were a spectacle to look at.  Skeletons, scarecrows, goblins, pathetic frights, every one; legitimatest possible children of Monarchy by the Grace of God and the Established Church.  I muttered absently:
    “I wish I could photograph them!”
    You have seen that kind of people who will never let on that they don't know the meaning of a new big word.  The more ignorant they are, the more pitifully certain they are to pretend you haven't shot over their heads.  The queen was just one of that sort, and was always making the stupidest blunders by reason of it.  She hesitated a moment; then her face brightened up with sudden comprehension, and she said she would do it for me.
    I thought to myself: She? why what can she know about photography? But it was a poor time to be thinking.  When I looked around, she was moving on the procession with an axe!
    Well, she certainly was a curious one, was Morgan le Fay.  I have seen a good many kinds of women in my time, but she laid over them all for variety.  And how sharply characteristic of her this episode was.  She had no more idea than a horse of how to photograph a procession; but being in doubt, it was just like her to try to do it with an axe.
    CHAPTER XIX
    KNIGHT-ERRANTRY AS A TRADE
    Sandy and I were on the road again, next morning, bright and early. It was so good to open up one's lungs and take in whole luscious barrels-ful of the blessed God's untainted, dew-fashioned, woodland-scented air once more, after suffocating body and mind for two days and nights in the moral and physical stenches of that intolerable old buzzard-roost!  I mean, for me: of course the place was all right and agreeable enough for Sandy, for she had been used to high life all her days.
    Poor girl, her jaws had had a wearisome rest now for a while, and I was expecting to get the consequences.  I was right; but she had stood by me most helpfully in the castle, and had mightily supported and reinforced me with gigantic foolishnesses which were worth more for the occasion than wisdoms double their size; so I thought she had earned a right to work her mill for a while, if she wanted to, and I felt not a pang when she started it up:
    “Now turn we unto Sir Marhaus that rode with the damsel of thirty winter of age southward--”
    “Are you going to see if you can work up another half-stretch on the trail of the cowboys, Sandy?”
    “Even so, fair my lord.”
    “Go ahead, then.  I won't interrupt this time, if I can help it. Begin over again; start fair, and shake out all your reefs, and I will load my pipe and give good attention.”
    “Now turn we unto Sir Marhaus that rode with the damsel of thirty winter of age southward.  And so they came into a deep forest, and by fortune they were nighted, and rode along in a deep way, and at the last they came into a courtelage where abode the duke of South Marches, and there they asked harbour.  And on the morn the duke sent unto Sir Marhaus, and bad him make him ready.  And so Sir Marhaus arose and armed him, and there was a mass sung afore him, and he brake his fast, and so mounted on horseback in the court of the castle, there they should do the battle.  So there was the duke already on horseback, clean armed, and his six sons by him, and every each had a spear in his hand, and so they encountered, whereas the duke and his two sons brake their spears upon him, but Sir Marhaus held up his spear and touched none of them.  Then came the four sons by couples, and two of them brake their spears, and so did the other two.  And all this while Sir Marhaus touched them not.  Then Sir Marhaus ran to the duke, and smote him with his spear that horse and man fell to the earth. And so he served his sons.  And then Sir Marhaus alight down, and bad the duke yield him or else he would slay him.  And then some of his sons recovered, and would have set upon Sir Marhaus.  Then Sir Marhaus said to the duke, Cease thy sons, or else I will do the uttermost to you all.  When the duke saw he might not escape the death, he cried to his sons, and charged them to yield them to Sir Marhaus.  And they kneeled all down and put the pommels of their swords to the knight, and so he received them.  And then they holp up their father, and so by their common assent promised unto Sir Marhaus never to be foes unto King Arthur, and thereupon at Whitsuntide after, to come he and his sons, and put them in the king's grace.*
    [*Footnote: The story is borrowed, language and all, from the Morte d'Arthur.--M.T.]
    “Even so standeth the history, fair Sir Boss.  Now ye shall wit that that very duke and his six sons are they whom but few days past you also did overcome and send to Arthur's court!”
    “Why, Sandy, you can't mean it!”
    “An I speak not sooth, let it be the worse for me.”
    “Well, well, well,--now who would ever have thought it?  One whole duke and six dukelets; why, Sandy, it was an elegant haul. Knight-errantry is a most chuckle-headed trade, and it is tedious hard work, too, but I begin to see that there is money in it, after all, if you have luck.  Not that I would ever engage in it as a business, for I wouldn't.  No sound and legitimate business can be established on a basis of speculation.  A successful whirl in the knight-errantry line--now what is it when you blow away the nonsense and come down to the cold facts?  It's just a corner in pork, that's all, and you can't make anything else out of it. You're rich--yes,--suddenly rich--for about a day, maybe a week; then somebody corners the market on you, and down goes your bucket-shop; ain't that so, Sandy?”
    “Whethersoever it be that my mind miscarrieth, bewraying simple language in such sort that the words do seem to come endlong and overthwart--”
    “There's no use in beating about the bush and trying to get around it that way, Sandy, it's so, just as I say.  I know it's so.  And, moreover, when you come right down to the bedrock, knight-errantry is worse than pork; for whatever happens, the pork's left, and so somebody's benefited anyway; but when the market breaks, in a knight-errantry whirl, and every knight in the pool passes in his checks, what have you got for assets?  Just a rubbish-pile of battered corpses and a barrel or two of busted hardware.  Can you call those assets?  Give me pork, every time.  Am I right?”
    “Ah, peradventure my head being distraught by the manifold matters whereunto the confusions of these but late adventured haps and fortunings whereby not I alone nor you alone, but every each of us, meseemeth--”
    “No, it's not your head, Sandy.  Your head's all right, as far as it goes, but you don't know business; that's where the trouble is.  It unfits you to argue about business, and you're wrong to be always trying.  However, that aside, it was a good haul, anyway, and will breed a handsome crop of reputation in Arthur's court.  And speaking of the cowboys, what a curious country this is for women and men that never get old.  Now there's Morgan le Fay, as fresh and young as a Vassar pullet, to all appearances, and here is this old duke of the South Marches still slashing away with sword and lance at his time of life, after raising such a family as he has raised.  As I understand it, Sir Gawaine killed seven of his sons, and still he had six left for Sir Marhaus and me to take into camp.  And then there was that damsel of sixty winter of age still excursioning around in her frosty bloom--How old are you, Sandy?”
    It was the first time I ever struck a still place in her.  The mill had shut down for repairs, or something.
    CHAPTER XX
    THE OGRE'S CASTLE
    Between six and nine we made ten miles, which was plenty for a horse carrying triple--man, woman, and armor; then we stopped for a long nooning under some trees by a limpid brook.
    Right so came by and by a knight riding; and as he drew near he made dolorous moan, and by the words of it I perceived that he was cursing and swearing; yet nevertheless was I glad of his coming, for that I saw he bore a bulletin-board whereon in letters all of shining gold was writ:
    “USE PETERSON'S PROPHYLACTIC TOOTH-BRUSH--ALL THE GO.”
    I was glad of his coming, for even by this token I knew him for knight of mine.  It was Sir Madok de la Montaine, a burly great fellow whose chief distinction was that he had come within an ace of sending Sir Launcelot down over his horse-tail once.  He was never long in a stranger's presence without finding some pretext or other to let out that great fact.  But there was another fact of nearly the same size, which he never pushed upon anybody unasked, and yet never withheld when asked: that was, that the reason he didn't quite succeed was, that he was interrupted and sent down over horse-tail himself.  This innocent vast lubber did not see any particular difference between the two facts.  I liked him, for he was earnest in his work, and very valuable.  And he was so fine to look at, with his broad mailed shoulders, and the grand leonine set of his plumed head, and his big shield with its quaint device of a gauntleted hand clutching a prophylactic tooth-brush, with motto: “Try Noyoudont.”  This was a tooth-wash that I was introducing.
    He was aweary, he said, and indeed he looked it; but he would not alight.  He said he was after the stove-polish man; and with this he broke out cursing and swearing anew.  The bulletin-boarder referred to was Sir Ossaise of Surluse, a brave knight, and of considerable celebrity on account of his having tried conclusions in a tournament once, with no less a Mogul than Sir Gaheris himself--although not successfully.  He was of a light and laughing disposition, and to him nothing in this world was serious.  It was for this reason that I had chosen him to work up a stove-polish sentiment.  There were no stoves yet, and so there could be nothing serious about stove-polish.  All that the agent needed to do was to deftly and by degrees prepare the public for the great change, and have them established in predilections toward neatness against the time when the stove should appear upon the stage.
    Sir Madok was very bitter, and brake out anew with cursings.  He said he had cursed his soul to rags; and yet he would not get down from his horse, neither would he take any rest, or listen to any comfort, until he should have found Sir Ossaise and settled this account.  It appeared, by what I could piece together of the unprofane fragments of his statement, that he had chanced upon Sir Ossaise at dawn of the morning, and been told that if he would make a short cut across the fields and swamps and broken hills and glades, he could head off a company of travelers who would be rare customers for prophylactics and tooth-wash.  With characteristic zeal Sir Madok had plunged away at once upon this quest, and after three hours of awful crosslot riding had overhauled his game.  And behold, it was the five patriarchs that had been released from the dungeons the evening before!  Poor old creatures, it was all of twenty years since any one of them had known what it was to be equipped with any remaining snag or remnant of a tooth.
    “Blank-blank-blank him,” said Sir Madok, “an I do not stove-polish him an I may find him, leave it to me; for never no knight that hight Ossaise or aught else may do me this disservice and bide on live, an I may find him, the which I have thereunto sworn a great oath this day.”