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A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
IN

KING ARTHUR'S COURT

BY
MARK TWAIN

HARPER & ROW PUBLISHERS

NEW YORK & EVANSTON

URIS LIBRARY
 Books bt
MARK TWAIN
ST.JOAN OF ARC
THE INNOCENTS ABROAD
ROUGHING IT
THE GILDED AGE
A TRAMP ABROAD
FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR
PUDD'NHEAD WILSON
SKETCHES NEW AND OLD
THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
A CONNECTICUT YANKEE AT THE COURT OF
KING ARTHUR
THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN
PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF JOAN OF ARC
LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI
THE MAN THAT CORRUPTED HADLEYBURG
THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER
THE }30,000 BEQUEST
THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER
TOM SAWYER ABROAD
WHAT IS MAN?
THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER
ADAM'S DIARY
A DOG'S TALE
A DOUBLE-BARRELED DETECTIVE STORY
EDITORIAL WILD OATS
EVE'S DIARY
IN DEFENSE OF HARRIET SHELLEY AND
OTHER ESSAYS
IS SHAKESPEARE DEAD?
CAPT. STORMFIELD'S VISIT TO HEAVEN
A HORSE'S TALE
THE JUMPING FROG
THE £1,000,000 BANK-NOTE
TRAVELS AT HOME
TRAVELS IN HISTORY
MARK TWAIN'S LETTERS
MARK TWAIN'S SPEECHES

HARPER & ROW, PUBLISHERS, INCORPORATED

NEW YORK
[Established 1817]

A Connecticut Yankee in King Akthur's Court

Copyright, 1889 and 1899 by Samuel L. Clemens

Copyright, 1917, by Claea Gabrilowitsch

Printed in the United States of America

 CONTENTS
jbap. pagb
Preface
A Word of Explanation i

I. Camelot 10
II. King Arthur's Court 13
III. Knights of the Table Round 21
IV. Sir Dinadan the Humorist 29
V. An Inspiration 34
VI. The Eclipse 42
VII. Merlin's Tower 51
VIII. The Boss 60
IX. The Tournament 68
X. Beginnings of Civilization 76
XI. The Yankee in Search of Adventures... 82
XII. Slow Torture '..... 93
XIII. Freemen 99
XIV. "Defend Thee, Lord!" no
XV. Sandy's Tale 116
XVI. Morgan le Pay 127
XVII. A Royal Banquet 136
XVIII. In the Queen's Dungeons 148
XIX. Knight-errantry as a Trade 162
XX. The Ogre's Castle 167
XXI. The Pilgrims 177
XXII. The Holy Fountain 194
XXIII. Restoration of the Fountain 208
XXIV. A Rival Magician 219
XXV. A Competitive Examination 233
 CONTENTS
CBAP. PAG
XX^/I. The First Newspaper .v ... 24
XXVII. The Yankee and the King Travel Incognito 26
XXVIII. Drilling the King 27
XXIX. The Smallpox Hut 28
XXX. The Tragedy of the Manor-house .... 28
XXXI. Marco 30
XXXII. Dowley's Humiliation 31
XXXIII. Sixth-century Political Economy .... 32
XXXIV. The Yankee and the King Sold as Slaves .
33
XXXV. A Pitiful Incident 35
XXXVI. An Encounter in the Dark 36
XXXVII. An Awful Predicament 36
XXXVIII. Sir Launcelotand Knights to the Rescue .
37
XXXIX. The Yankee's Fight with the Knights . . 38
XL. Three Years Later 39
XLI. The Interdict 40
XLII. War! 41
XLIII, The Battle of the Sand-belt 42
XLIV. A Postscript by Clarence 44
FUTAL P. S. BY M. T 44
 ILLUSTRATIONS
"I Saw He Meant Business" FrmiUpiece

"There Was No Soap, No Matches, No Looking-

glass" Facing p. 52

Solid Comfort " 254

•The Sun Struck the Sea of Armor and Set It

All Aflash" " 432
 PREFACE
laws and customs touched upon m
rHE ungentle
are historical, and
tiiis tale the episodes which
are used to illustrate them are also historical. It is
not pretended that these laws and customs existed in
England in the sixth century; no, it is only pretended
that inasmuch as they existed in the English and
other civilizations of far later times, it is safe to
consider that it is no libel upon the sixth century to
suppose them to have been in practice in that day
also. One is quite justified in inferring that what-
ever one of these laws or customs was lacking in that
remote time, its place was competently filled by a
worse one.
The question as to whether there is such a thing as
divine right of kings is not settled in this book. It

was found too difficult. That the executive head of a

nation should be a person of lofty character and
extraordinary ability, was manifest and indisputable;
that none but the Deity could select that head unerr-
ingly, was also manifest and indisputable; that the
Deity ought to make that selection, then, was likewise
manifest and indisputable; consequently, that He
does make it, as claimed, was an unavoidable de-
duction. I mean, until the author of this book en-
cotmtered the Pompadour, and Lady Castlemaine,
 PREFACE
and some other executive heads of that kind; these
were found so difficult to work into the scheme,
that it was judged better to take the other tack in
this book (which must be issued this fall), and then
go into training a,nd another
settle the question in
book. It is, which ought to be
of course, a thing
settled, and I am not going to have anything partic-
tuar to dt» next winter anyway.
Mark Twain.
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
IN KING ARTHUR'S COURT
 A WORD OF EXPLANATION
was in Warwick Castle that I came across the
ITcurious stranger whom I am going to talk about.
He attracted me by three things: his candid sim-
plicity, hismarvelous familiarity with ancient armor,
—
and the restfulness of his company ^for he did all the
talking. We fell together, as modest people will, in
the tail of the herd that was being shown through,
and he at once began to say things which interested
me. As he talked along, softly, pleasantly, fiowingly,
he seemed to drift away imperceptibly out of this
world and time, and into some remote era and old
forgotten country; and so he gradually wove such a
speU about me that I seemed to move among the
specters and shadows and dust and mold of a gray
antiquity, holding speech with a relic of it Exactly
!

as I would speak of my nearest personal friends or

enemies, or my most familiar neighbors, he spoke of
Sir Bedivere, Sir Bors de Ganis, Sir Launcelot of the
Lake, Sir Galahad, and all the other great names of
 : — —
MARK TWAIN
the Table Round—and howold, old, tinspeakably
old and faded and dry and musty and ancient he
came to look as he went on! Presently he turned
to me and said, just as one might speak of the
weather, or any other common matter
"You know about transmigration of souls; do you
—
know about transposition of epochs and bodies?"
I said I had not heard of it. He was so little inter-
ested — when people speak of the weather
^just as
that he did not notice whether Imade him any an-
swer or not. There was half a moment of silence,
immediately interrupted by the droning voice of the
salaried cicerone:
"Ancient hauberk, date of the sixth century, time
of King Arthur and the Round Table; said to have
belonged to the knight Sir Sagramor le Desirous ob-
;

serve the round hole through the chain-mail in the

left breast can't be accounted for supposed to have
; ;

been done with a bullet since invention of firearms

perhaps maliciously by Cromwell's soldiers."
—
My acquaintance smiled ^not a modem smile, but
one that must have gone out of general use many,
—
many centuries ago and muttered apparently to
himself
"Wit ye well, I saw it done." Then, after a pause,
added: "I did it myself."
By the time I had recovered from the electric sur-
prise of this remark, he was gone.
All that evening I sat by my fire at the Warwick
Arms, steeped in a dream of the olden time, while the
rain beat upon the windows, and the wind roared
about the eaves and comers. From time to time I
9
 :

A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
dipped into old Sir Thomas Malory's enchanting
book, and fed at its rich feast of prodigies and
adventures, breathed in the fragrance of its obsolete
names, and dreamed again. Midnight being come
at length, I read another tale, for a nightcap—this
which here follows, to wit

HOW SIR LAUNCELOT SLEW TWO GIANTS, AND

MADE A CASTLE FREE
Anon withal came there upon him two great giants, well
armed, aU save the heads, with two horrible clubs in their hands.
Sir Launcelot put his shield afore him, and put the stroke away
of the one giant, and with his sword he clave his head asunder.
When his fellow saw that, he ran away as he were wood,' for
fear of the horrible strokes, and Sir Launcelot after him with
all his might, and smote him on the shoulder, and clave him to
the middle. Then Sir Launcelot went into the hall, and there
came afore him threescore ladies and damsels, and kneeled
all

unto him, and thanked God and him of For,

their deliverance.
sir, said they, the most part of us have been here this seven year
their prisoners, and we have worked all manner of silk works
for our meat, and we are all great gentlewomen bom, and
blessed be the time, knight, that ever thou wert bom; for thou
hast done the most worship that ever did knight in the world,
that will we bear record, and we all pray you to teU us your name,
that we may tell our friends who dehvered us out of prison.
Fair damsels, he said, my name is Sir Launcelot du Lake. And
so he departed from them and betaught them unto God. And
then he mounted upon his horse, and rode into many strange
and wild coimtries, and through many waters and valleys, and
evU was he lodged. And at the last by fortune him happened
against a night to come to a fair courtilage, and therein he found
an old gentlewoman that lodged him with # good will, and there
he had good cheer for him and his horse.^ And when time was,
his host brought him into a fair garr^ over the gate to his
bed. There Sir Launcelot unarmed Km, and set his harness
by him, and went to bed, and anon he fell on sleep. So, soon
> Demented.
 MARK TWAIN
after there came one on horseback, and knocked at the gate in
great haste. And when Sir Launcelot heard this he rose up,
and looked out at the window, and saw by the moonlight three
knights come riding after that one man, and all three lashed
on him at once with swords, and that one knight turned on them
knightly again and defended him. Truly, said Sir Launcelot,
yonder one knight shall I help, for it were shame for me to
see three knights on one, and if he be slain I am partner of his
death. And therewith he took his harness and went out at a
window by a sheet down to the four knights, and then Sir
Launcelot said on high, Turn you knights unto me, and leave
your fighting with that knight. And then they all three left
Sir Kay, and turned unto Sir Launcelot, and there began great
battle, for they alight all three, and strake many strokes at
Sir Launcelot, and assailed him on every side. Then Sir Kay
dressed him for to have holpen Sir Launcelot. Nay, sir, said
he, I will none of your help, therefore as ye will have my help
let me alone with them. Sir Kay for the pleasure of the knight
suffered him for to do his will, and so stood aside. And then
anon within six strokes Sir Launcelot had stricken them to the
earth.
And then they all three cried. Sir Knight, we yield us unto you
as man of might matchless. As to that, said Sir Launcelot, I
will not take your yielding unto me, but so that ye yield you
unto Sir Kay the seneschal, on that covenant I will save your
hves and else not. Fair knight, said they, that were we loath
to do; for as for Sir Kay we chased him hither, and had over-
come him had ye not been; therefore, to 5deld us unto him it
were no reason. Well, as to that, said Sir Launcelot, advise
you well, for ye may choose whether ye will die or live, for an
ye be yielden, it shall be unto Sir Kay. Fair knight, then they
said, in saving our lives we will do as thou commandest us.
Then shall ye, said Sir Launcelot, on Whitsunday next coming
go unto the court of King Arthur, and there shall ye yield you
unto Queen Guenever, and put you all three in her grace and
mercy, and say that Sir Kay sent you thither to be her prisoners.
On the mom Sir Launcelot.arose early, and left Sir Kay sleeping-
and Sir Launcelot took Sir Kay's armor and his shield and
armed him, and so he went to the stable and took his horse
and took his leave of his host, and so he departed. Then soon
after arose Sir Kay and missed Sir Launcelot; and then he

4
 :

A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
espied that he had his armor and his horse. Now by my faith
I know well that he will grieve some of the court of King Arthur;
for on him knights will be bold, and deem that it is I, and that
will beguile them; and because of his armor and shield I am
sure I shall ride in peace. And then soon after departed Sir
Kay, and thanked his host.

As book down there was a knock at the

I laid the
door, and my came in. I gave him a pipe
stranger
and a chair, and made him welcome. I also com-
forted him with a hot Scotch whisky; gave him
another one; then still another ^hoping always for —
his story. After a fourth persuader, he drifted into
it himself, in a quite simple and natural way

THE stranger's HISTORY

I am an American. I was bom and reared in Hart-

ford, in the state of Connecticut — anjrsvay, just over
the river, in the country. So I am
a Yankee of the
Yankees — ^and practical; yes, and nearly barren of
sentiment, I suppose —or poetry, in other words. My
father was a blacksmith, my uncle was a horse-doc-
tor, and I was both, along at first. Then I went over
to the great arms factory and learned my real trade;
learned all there was to it; learned to make every-
thing: guns, revolvers, cannon, boilers, engines, all
sorts of labor-saving machinery. Why, I could make
—
anjrthing a body wanted ^anything in the world, it
didn't make any difference what ; and if there wasn't
any quick new-fangled way to make a thing, I could
—
invent one and do it as easy as rolling off a log. I
became head superintendent; had a couple of thou-
sand men imder me.
S
 — —

MARK TWAIN
Well, a man like that is a man that is full of fight
that goes without saying. With a couple of thousand
rough men under one, one has plenty of that sort oi
amusement. I had, anjrway. At last I met mj
match, and I got my dpse. It was during a misun-
derstanding conducted with crowbars with a fellow
we used to call Hercules. He laid me out with a
crusher alongside the head that made everything
crack, and seemed to spring every joint in my skuU
and made it overlap its neighbor. Then the world
went out in darkness, and I didn't feel anything more,
and didn't know anything at all —
at least for a
while.
When I came to again, I was sitting under an oai
tree, on the grass, with a whole beautiful and broad
country landscape all to myself —
^nearly. Not en-
tirely ; for therewas a fellow on a horse, looking down
at me a fellow fresh out of a picttire-book. He was
in old-time iron armor from head to heel, with a
helmet on his head the shape of a nail-keg with sHts
in it and he had a shield, and a sword, and a pro-
;

digious spear and his horse had armor on, too, and a
;

steel horn projecting from his forehead, and gorgeous

red and green silk trappings that himg down all
around him like a bedquilt, nearly to the grotmd.
"Fair sir, will ye just?" said this fellow.
"Will I which?"
"Win ye try a passage of arms for land or lady or
for—"
"What are you giving me?" I said. "Get along
back to your circus, or I'll report you."
Now what does this man do but fall back a couple
&
 : ;

A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
of hundred yards and then come rushing at me as
hard as he could tear, with his nail-keg bent down
nearly to his horse's neck and his long spear pointed
straight ahead. I saw he meant business, so I was
up the tree when he arrived.
He
allowed that I was his property, the captive of
his spear. There was argument on his side and the —
—
bulk of the advantage so I judged it best to humor
him. We fixed up an agreement whereby I was to go
with him and he was not to hurt me. I came down,
and we started away, I walking by the side of his
horse. We marched comfortably along, through
glades and over brooks which I could not remember
—
to have seen before ^which puzzled me and made me
—
wonder ^and yet we did not come to any circus or
sign of a circus. So I gave up the idea of a circus,
and concluded he was from an asylum. But we
—
never came to an asylum so I was up a stump, as
you may say. I asked him how far we were from
Hartford. He said he had never heard of the place
which I took to be a lie, but allowed it to go at that.
At the end of an hour we saw a far-away town sleep-
ing in a valley by a winding river and beyond it on a
;

hill, a vast gray fortress, with towers and turrets, the

first I had ever seen out of a picture.

"Bridgeport?" said I, pointing.

"Camelot," said he.

My stranger had been showing signs of sleepiness.

He caught himself nodding, now, and smiled one of
those pathetic, obsolete smiles of his, and said
"I find I can't go on; but come with me, I've
7
 MARK TWAIN
got it all written out, and you can read it if yoi
like."
In his chamber, he said: "First, I kept a journal
then by and by, after years, I took the journal anc
turned it into a book. How long ago that was!"
He handed me his manuscript, and pointed out th(
place where I should begin:
—
"Begin here I've already told you what goes be
fore." He was steeped in drowsiness by this time
As I went out at his door I heard him murmur sleep
ily: "Give you good den, fair sir."
I sat down by my fire and examined my treasure
The first part of it —the great bulk of — it parch
^was
ment, and yellow with age. I scanned a leaf particu
larly and saw that it was a palimpsest. Under th(
old dim writing of the Yankee historian appeare(
traces of a penmanship which was older and dimme
still —
Latin words and sentences: fragments fron
old monkish legends, evidently. I turned to tb
place indicated by my stranger and began to reac
— ^as follows:

8
 CHAPTER I

CAMELOT

CAMELOT—Camelot," said I to myself. "I

don't seem to remember hearing of it before.
Name of the asylum, likely."
It was a soft, reposeful summer landscape, as love-
ly 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, noth-
ing 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 about ten years old,
girl,

with a cataract of golden hair streaming down over

her shoxilders, 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
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
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 pic-
ture of astonished curiosity touched with fear. And
there she stood gazing, in a sort of stupefied fascina-
tion, till we turned a comer 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 Hke 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 hum-
ble salutation and get no response for their pains.
In the town were some substantial windowless
II
 MARK TWAIN
houses of stone scattered among a wildemess of
thatched cabins; the streets were mere crooked
alleys, and unpaved ; troops of dogs and nude chil-
dren 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. Pres-
ently there was a distant blare of mihtary music;
it came nearer, still nearer, and soon a noble caval-

cade wound into view, glorious with pltuned 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 gal-
lant 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 got a chance

I pn-
vately and touched an ancient common-looking
I slipped aside

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 here on a visit or some-
thing 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 whatf"
"Hinder me, then, if the word please thee bet-
ter." 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

13
 MARK TWAIN
to know where I got my
As he started
clothes.
away he pointed and was one who was
said yonder
idle enough for my purpose, and was seeking me be-
sides, 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 ruflfles; and he had long yellow

curls,and wore a plumed pink satin cap tilted com-
placently 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 para-
graph."
It was pretty severe, but I was nettled. How-
ever, it never fazed 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
bom 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."
14
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
"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."
waited a minute, to let that idea shudder its
I way
home, and then said:
"And according to your notions, what year is it

now?"
"528 —^nineteenth of June."
I felta mournful sinking at the heart, and mut-
tered: "I shall never see my friends again ^never, —
never again. They will not be bom 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 con- —
sciousness, as you may say; but my reason didn't.
My reason straighway began to clamor; that was
natural. I didn't know how to go about satisfy-
ing because I knew that the testimony of men
it,

—
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 stm in the
IS
 —

MARK TWAIN
first half of the sixth century occurred on the 21st
of June, A.D. 528, and began at 3 minutes
O.S., aftei
12 noon. I also knew
that no total eclipse of the
stm 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 circum-

stances 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 1
was among Itmatics and couldn't get away, I woxild
presently boss that asyltmi 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: 1

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 — that might happen
^if

to be yoior name — I'll getyou to post me up a little

if you don't mind. What isthe name of that ap-
parition that brought me here?"
16
 ;

A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
"My master and thine? That is the good knight
and great lord Sir Kay the Seneschal, foster-brother
to our hege the king."
"Very good; go on, tell me everTthing."
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

by this time, and that as soon as the
the great hall
and the heavy drinking should begin, Sir
sociability
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 and when
over-safe, either;
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.
WeU, it was a curious kind of spectacle, and in-
teresting. It was an immense place, and rather
—
naked ^yes, and full of loud contrasts. It was very,
17
 ;

MARK TWAIN
very lofty; so lofty that the banners depending from
bhe arched beams and girders away up there floated
in a sort of twilight; there was a stone-railed gal-
lery 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 htmg 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 breast-
plate and morion, with halberds for their only wea-
—
'pon ^rigidas statues and thatis what they lookedlike.
;

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 pliuned 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 —
rom entire ox horns
^f

but a few were still munching bread or gnawing beef

i8
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
bones. There was about an average of two dogs to
one man; and these sat in expectant attitudes tUl 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 ob-
serve it the better and bet on it, and the ladies and
the musicians stretched themselves out over their
balusters with the same object; and
broke into
all

delighted ejaculations from time to time. In the

end, the winning dog stretched himself out comfort-
ably 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 indus-
triesand entertainments.
As a rule, the speech and behavior of these people
were gracious and cotirtly; and I noticed that they
were good and serious listeners when anybody was
telling anything —
^I mean in a dog-fightless interval.

And they were a childlike and innocent

plainly, too,
lot; telling lies of the stateliest pattern with a most
gentle and winning naivet6, 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.
19
 —
MARK TWAIN
I was not the only prisoner There were
present.
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
leastnone 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 out-
come of mental training, intellectual fortitude, rea-
soning; mere animal training; they are white
it is

Indians."

so
 —

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 —
^thesemurderous 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 intro-
duced 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 fuU 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
21
 MARK TWAIN
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 ex-
istence impossible.
There was a fine manliness observable in almost
every face; and in some a and sweet-
certain loftiness
ness that rebuked your belittling criticisms and
staled 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 roseand 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 disap-

pointed; and the page whispered in my ear with an
 —
A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
accent and manner expressive of extravagant de-
rision
"Sir Kay, forsooth! Oh, call me pet names, dear-
est, call mea 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, kiUed 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 one pitched battle and
in
thirty-fotir in another; and these and the former
all

nine he made to swear that about Whitsuntide they

22
 MARK TWAIN
would ride to Arthur's court and yield them to Queen
Guenever's hands as captives of Sir Kay the Sene-
schal, 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, aU by himself, should have been able
to beat down and capture such battalions of prac-
tised 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
swajdng 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 ob-
servable in all the faces around — ^the look of dumb
creatures who know that they must endtu-e and
make no moan.
"Marry, we shall have it again," sighed the boy;
24
 '

A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
"that same old weary tale that he hath told a
thousand times in the same words, and that he will
teU 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
out these
entrails many years ago to get at that tale
and squelch it. He telleth it always in the third
person, making believe he istoo 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, un-
molested, 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 irrever-
25
 MARK TWAIN
ence. 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,^ said Merlin, hereby is a sword that shall be
yours an 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 Arthtir 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
' No matter.

26
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
into yonder barge and row yourself to the sword,
and take and the scabbard with you, and I will
it

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 Arthiu- 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 anou in the
highway. That is well said, said Arthur, now have
I a sword, now wiU 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 wiU 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.
27
 MARK TWAIN
Ye are more unwise, said Merlin, for the scabbard
is worth ten of the sword, for whUe ye have the scab-
bard 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 an
he had seen you ye had not lightly departed. So
they came tmto Carlion, whereof his knights were
passing glad. And when they heard of his adven-
tures 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."

28
 CHAPTER IV
SIR DINADAN THE HUMORIST

seemed to me that
this quaint lie was most
ITsimply and beautifiilly 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.
Dinadan the Humorist was the first to awake,
Sir
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 aU 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 Hke 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
29
 MARK TWAIN
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, hundred years before I was
thirteen
bom, and listen again to poor, flat, worm-eaten
jokes that had given me the dry gripes when I was
a boy thirteen htmdred years afterward. 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 no-
ticed 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 in-
vented 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 enchant-
30
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
ment 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 ad-
miration of the king and the court. He spoke of
me all the time, in the blandest way, as "this pro-
digious giant," and "this horrible sky-towering
monster," and "this tusked and taloned man-
devouring ogre," and everybody took in aU 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
trsmig 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 "aU-to brast" the most of my bones, and
then swore me to appear at Arthur's court for sen-
tence. 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.
was in a dismal
I 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 the possibility of the killing being doubted
killed,
by some, because of the enchantment in my clothes,
i^d 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
assem-
and gentlemen in the land
blage of the first ladies
Indelicacy
would have made a Comanche blush.
31
 MARK TWAIN
istoo 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 re-
mained 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,
mouths
instead of putting the conversations into the
had allowed the characters to speak
of his characters,
for themselves? We should have had talk from
Rebecca and Ivanhoe and the soft lady Rowena
which would embarrass a tramp in our day. How-
ever, to the unconsciously indelicate all things are
delicate. Bang 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 I was the
dear, dear, to think of
it :

only embarrassed person Everybody dis-

there.
cussed 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
32
 —
A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
anybody with legs just like mine before. It was
the only compliment I got H. 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.

33
 —

CHAPTER V
AN INSPIRATION

1WAS SO tired that even my fears were not able

to keep me awake long.
Wlien I next came to myself, I seemed to have
been asleep a very long time. My first thought was,
"WeU, 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'U nap again tiU the whistle blows, and then
.

I'll go down to the arms factory and have it out with

Herctiles."
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
gasped with
! I
surprise; my breath almost got away from me.
"What!" I said, "you here yet? Gk) 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 ejdsted; and that
34
 " —
A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
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 — "and there be other
^hesitatingly:
reasons —^and weightier."
Other ones ? What are they ?"
'
'

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

daren't!"
"Why, poor what is the matter? Why do
lad,

jTOU 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!"
35
 MARK TWAIN
He hesitated, ptdled one way by desire, the other
way by then he stole to the door and peeped
fear;
out, listening; and finally crept close to me and put
his my ear and told me his fearful news
mouth to
and with all the cowering apprehension
in a whisper,
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!"
laughed the only really refreshing laugh I had had
I
for some time; and shouted:
"Merlin has wrought a spell! Merlin, forsooth!
That cheap old humbug, that maiuidering old ass?
Bosh, ptore 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
36
 — —
A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
was so honestly and sincerely afraid of Merlin's pre
tended magic as Clarence was, certainly a superioi
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 and caught
recoiled a step,
his breath, for the thing hithim rather sudden; but
the aspect which he took on was very, very respectful.
I took quick note of that ; it indicated that a htunbug
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 known 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, every-
where 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 rudi-
37
 MARK TWAIN
ments, and never will. He is well enough for the
provinces—one-night stands and that of thing, sort
you know— dear me, he oughtn't to
^but up for set
an expert—anyway not where there's a real artist.
Now am
going to stand your
look here, Clarence, I
friend, right along, and in return you must be
mine. I want you to do me a favor. I want you
to getword to the king that I am a magician myself
— and the Supreme Grand High-yu-Muckamuck
and head of the tribe, at that; and I want him to
be made to understand that I am just quietly ar-
ranging a littlecalamity here that will make the fur
fly in these realms if Sir Kay's project is carried out
and any harm comes to me. WiU you get that to
me?"
the king for
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 everjrthing; 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, Hke
a sick person.
Presently this thought occurred to me: how heed-
less Ihave 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, mean-
38
 I

A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
time. But finally it occtirred 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 —
intending to invent a calamity at my leisure; now
the people who are the readiest and eagerest and
wiUingest 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 com-
ing. 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
39
 MARK TWAIN
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.
morning now."
It is nine of the
'

' No ! Then
have slept well, sure enough. Nine
I
in the morning now! And yet it is the very com-
plexion 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?"
40
 ,

A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
"At high noon."
"Now then, I will tell you what to say." 1
paused, and stood over that cowering lad a whole
minute in awftd silence; then, in a voice deep, meas-
ured, charged with doom, I began, and rose by
dramatically graded stages to my colossal cHmax,
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.

41
 CHAPTER VI

THE ECLIPSE

the stillness and the darkness, realization soon

INbegan to supplement The mere
knowledge.
knowledge of a fact is pale; but when you come to
realize your fact, it takes on color. It is aU the dif-
ference 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 kingdom besides; and
in the
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
42
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
allthe 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 pro-
posed calamity should be reported to those super-
stitious 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 ap-
peared. The leader said:
"The stake is ready. Come!"
The stake! The strength went out of me, and 1
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 purposelessly 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 dayUght and the upper world. As we
43
 —
MARK TWAIN
stepped into the vast inclosed 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 aU 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 con-
spicuous figures there, of course.
To note all this, occupied but a second. The next
second Clarence had sUpped 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 duU 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 glori-
fying 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
^ed! You will not need to do the sun a real hurt
44
 — :

A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
ah, forget not that, on your sotil forget it not ! Only
make a Httle darkness —only the Httlest little dark-
ness, 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 sup-
plication, and do the blessed stm 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
stillnesswas so profound that if I had been blind-
fold I should have supposed I was in a solitude in-
stead 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; itcontinued while the fagots were
still

carefully piled about my ankles, my

and tediously
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 multi-
tude strained forward, gazing, and parting slightly
from their seats without knowing it; the monk
45
 MARK TWAIN
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 Httle while, and
then stopped. I waited two or three moments;
then looked up; he was standing there petrified.
With a common impiolse 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, mo-
tionless. 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
closeupon 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 tordi
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 light-
nings!"
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 dur-
ing that little while. Then he sat down, and I took
d6
 "

A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
a good breath for I knew I was master
; of the situa-
tion now. The king said:
"Be merciful, fair sir, and essay no further in this
perilous matter, lest disaster follow. It was re-
ported 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? was
It a lie."
That made an immense effect; up went appealing
hands eversrw^here, 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 halv-
ing of my kingdom; but banish this calamity, sparo
the sun!"
My forttme 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 con-

sider. The king said:
"How long —^ah, how long, good sir? Be merci-
ful; 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. Some-
thing 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
47
 MARK TWAIN
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 ex-
citement, 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; had seen that for myself, in

I
the beginning, by the dial that was near by. Yes, I
was in King Arthur's cotut, and I might as well
make the most 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 allyour do-
minions, 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:
 "

A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
"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 ecUpse 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 re-
pent to some extent of what he had done under ex-
citement; therefore I would let the darkness grow
awhile, 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
49
 MARK TWAIN
multitude groaned with horror to feel the cold un-
canny 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 by his silence, still stands to the
king,
terms." —
Then I lifted up my hand stood just so
—
a moment ^then I said, with the most awful solemn^
ity: "Let the enchantment dissolve and pass harm-
less away!"
There was no response, for a moment, in that deep
darkness and that graveyard hush. But when the
silver rim of the sim 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 Clar-
ence was not the last of the wash, to be sure.

5°
 CHAPTER VII

merlin's tower

INASMUCH as I was now the second personage in

the kingdom, as far as political power and author-
ity were concerned, much was made of me. My i

raiment was of silks and velvets and cloth-of-gold,

and by consequence was very showy, also uncom-
fortable. 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 conveni-
ences, properly speaking, there weren't any. I mean
little it is the little conveniences that
conveniences;
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 home-
sick to look around over this proud and gaudy but
SI
 MARK TWAIN
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." Ra-
phael 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 with-
out upsetting. I always admired to study R.'s art,
it was so fresh and tmconventional.
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 caU for him.
There was no gas, there were no candles; a bronze
dish half full of boarding-house butter with a blaz-
ing 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
52
"there was no soap, no matches, no looking-glass"
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
openings they believed to be windows. It is a little
— —
iiang ^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

j

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 trans-
pired 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 pro-
ducer 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
S3
 MARK TWAIN
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
aU the country-side. 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 cele-
brated 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,
54
 ,

A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
but it was too fax 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 mo-
ment's leisure and blow up Merlin's stone tower by
fires from heaven; in the mean time, whoso listened
to evil reports about me, let him beware. Further-
more, I would perform but this one miracle at this
time, and no more; if it failed to satisfy and any
murmured, I wovdd 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 hiro

that this was a sort of miracle that required a trifle

of preparation, and that it would be sudden death
55
 —
MARK TWAIN
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 con-
structed 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 cotold 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 to the other batches. Everybody
it

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 consum-
mate 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
S6
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
should have explained that I was busy with aflfairff

and the people must wait.

of state yet,
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 bum me alive when I had not
done you any harm, and latterly you have been
trjang to injure my professional reputation. There-
fore I going to call down fire and blow up your
am
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."

S7
 MARK TWAIN
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 every-
body 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
wotdd have modified it.
It was an effective miracle. The great bother-
some 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
58
 A CONNECTICUi YANKEE
advertised axiother iniracle 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 re-
build 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 cotildn't fairly expect a man to be sweet

that had been set back so.

59
 CHAPTER VIII

THE BOSS

TO be vested with enormous authority is a fine

thing; but to have the onlooking worid con-
sent to it is a finer. The tower episode soHdified
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 v/ith
my matters.
I was fast getting adjusted tomy 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 ftilly
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 cen-
tury as I could have been in any other; and as for
preference, I wouldn't have traded it for the twen-
tieth. 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 aU my own; not a competitor;
tiot a man who wasn't a baby to me in acquirements
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
and capacities ; whereas, what would I amount to in
the twentieth century? I should be foreman of a
factory, that is and could drag a seine
about all;

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 and contemplating it, just as one
it,

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, Mor-
timers, Villierses the war-making, campaign-direct-
;

ing wantons of France, and Charles the Second's

scepter- wielding drabs; but nowhere in the pro-
cessionwas my full-sized fellow visible. I was a
Unique; and glad to know that that fact could not
6i
 MARK TWAIN
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 inter-

est. And the people They were the quaintest and
!

simplest and trustingest race; why, they were noth-

ing but rabbits. It was pitiful for a person bom
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, howso-
ever pruned, is rightly an insult; but if you are bom
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 Ats
aristocracies —
a company of monarchs and nobles
who, as a rule, would have achieved only poverty
62
 '

A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
and obscurity if left, like their betters, to theii'
OTCn exertions.
VThe 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 themsglves 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 lan-
guage 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 tl^y took even this sort of attention as an
honorj
Vlnherited ideas are a curious thing, and interest-
ing 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 pedi-
gree, whether they had great natural gifts and ac-
quirements or hadn't, were creatures of no more
63
 MARK TWAIN
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 natiural. You
know how the keeper and the public regard the ele-
phant 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 comprehend it; couldn't take it
couldn't
in ; any remote way conceive of it. Well,
couldn't in
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 won-
der 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 con-
64
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
verted a nation of men to a nation of worms. Be^^
fore 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 main-
ly by achievement, not by birthTjEut then the
Church came to the front, with an ax 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 things," 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 in-
sult; preached (still to the commoner, always to the
commoner) patience, meanness of spirit, non-re-
sistance under oppression and she introduced heri-
;

table 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 Christen-
dom, 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 itj It seems to show that there isn't
anything you can't stand, if you are only bom and
bred to it. Of course that taint, that reverence for
65
 MARK TWAIN
rank and title, had been American blood, too
in our
— I know that; but when America it had dis-
I left
—
appeared at least to all intents and ptuposes. The
remnant of it was restricted to the dudes and du-
desses. 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 pyg-
mies, a man among master intelligence
children, a
among intellectual moles; by all rational measure-
ment 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 maiv 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, oiu: 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
66
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
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 feU cas-
ually from the Ups 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
aflBrmative vote; in ten days it had swept the king-
dom, and was become as familiar as the king's name.
I was never known by any other designation after-
ward, 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 modem speech,
would be THE BOSS. Elected by the nation. That
stiited 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 cotild 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 was capable of respecting any unearned
as I
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, every-
body was satisfied.
67
 CHAPTER IX
THE TOURNAMENT

THEY were always having grand tournaments

and very stirring and pic-
there at Camelot;
turesque 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 tc

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
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 '

A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
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 costuriiery, and very char,
acteristic 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 <?f beautiful ladies,
shining in their barbaric splendors, would see a
knight sprawl from his horse in the lists with a lance-
shaft 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 ax well, I made up
69
 MARK TWAIN
my mind that the next time I lent an ax to a
surgeon I would pick my century.
I not only watched this tournament from day to
day bu detailed an intelligent priest from my Depart-
, fc

ment 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
M^ant 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 the details, and that is a good thing in a
all
local item: you see, he had kept books for the under-
taker 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
70
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
pious hermit who lived in a sty and worked mir-
acles.
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
ina 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 and 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 Latmcelot. 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 Sagramor le Desirous, and Sir Dodinas le
Savage; all these he bare down with one spear. When King
Agwisance of Ireland saw Sir Gareth fare so he marveled what
he might be, that one time seemed green, and another time, at
bis again coming, he seemed blue. And thus 9t every course
 MARK TWAIN
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 Sir 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 labor;
for peradventure, said Sir Launcelot, his quarrel is here this day,
and peradventure he best beloved with this lady of all that
is
be here, for he paineth himself and enforceth him to
I see well
do great deeds, and therefore, said Sir Launcelot, as for me,
this day he shall have the honor; though it lay in my power
to put him from it, I would hot.

There was an unpleasant Kttle 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
T2
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
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. "V^Tiile 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
wrtmg 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
milli ons and billions of times, and and cursed
cried

all the way through. Then who can hope to know

what my feelings were, to hear this armor-plated ass
13
 MARK TWAIN
start in on it again, in the murky twilight of tradi-
tion, before the dawn of history, while even Lac-
tantius might be referred to as "the late Lactantius,"
and the Crusades wouldn't be bom for five hundred
years yet? Just as he finished, the caU-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 un-
consciously 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. would be ready
I said I
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
74
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
it ifhe had nan 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.

75
 CHAPTER X
BEGINNINGS OF CIVILIZATION

THEcourse
Round Table soon heard
of was a good deal
it
of the challenge,
discussed, for such
and

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
shoidd be ready; aU the chances were that at the
end of that time Sir Sagramor would stiU 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 ma-
chinery would be so weU 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 comers
I had the beginnings of all sorts of industries under
way — future vast factories, the iron and
^nuclei of
steel missionaries of my future civilization. In
these were gathered together the brightest young
minds could find, and I kept agents out raking the
I
country for more, aU the time. I was training a
76
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
—
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 with-
—
out 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 andi
growing condition. Everybody could be any kind
of a Christian he wanted to; there was perfect free-
dom 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 with-
out any trouble, but that would have been to affront
a law of human nature spiritual wants and instincts
: i

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 and, besides, I was afraid
it;

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 i

human thought.
77
 !

MARK TWAIN
All mines were royal property, and there were a
good many of them. They had formerly been
—
worked as savages always work mines wholes 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.
Pour 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 con-
ditions were the same, namely, the despot the per-
fectest 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. Unsus-
pected 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
78
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
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 thou-
sand 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 mid-
night 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 and, moreover, I should have had the
it;

Established Roman Catholic Church on my back

.'in a minute.
No, I had been going cautiously all the while. 1,

had had confidential agents trickling through the

country some time, whose office was to undermine
knighthood by imperceptible degrees, and to gnaw
a Httle at this and that and the other superstition,
and so prepare the way gradually for a better order i

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
19
 MARK TWAIN
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. Hetook to it like a duck;
there was an editor concealed in him, svure. 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 ven-
;

ture 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 con-
nection 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 inten-
tionally 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
80
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
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 coiintry, 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 dis-
tributed 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 seel was expect-
ing this interruption; it did not take me by surprise,
8i
 —

CHAPTER XI
THE YANKEE IN SEARCH OF ADVENTURES

THERE never was such a country for wandering

and they were of both sexes. Hardly a
liars;

month went by without one of these tramps arriv-

ing; and generally loaded with a tale about some
princess or other wanting help to get her out of
some far-away where she was held in captivity
castle
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 sim-
ple and common-sense a thing as that. No, every-
body 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 stupen-
dous brothers, each with four arms and one eye
82
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
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 preposter-
ous opporttmity 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 con-
tain his. His mouth gushed delight and gratitude
in —
a steady discharge dehght 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 this benefaction, but I kept my
upon me
vexation tinder 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 when he is scalped.
is

Well, one must make the best of things, and not

waste time with useless fretting, but get down to
business what can be done. In all lies there
and see
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:
83
 MARK TWAIN
"My dear, have you been questioned as to par-
ticulars?"
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 J
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 Kve,

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."
—^any documents
"Have you brought any letters
—any proofs that you are trustworthy and truthful?"
"Of a surety, no; and wherefore should I? Have
I not a tongue, and carmot I say all that myself?"
"But your saying it, you know, and somebody
else's saying it, is different."
84
 " — —
A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
"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 imderstand a
little thing like that? Can't you understand the
difference between your why do you look so inno- >

cent 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 aU 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
—
"Holdon, hold on, never mind about the dis-
tance; whereabouts does the castle lie? What's the
direction from here?"
"Ah, please you sir, it hath no direction from
85
 " "

MARK TWAIN
here; by reason that the
road,lieth not straight,
but tumeth 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 marvel happing again and yet again and still
this
again, it wiU grieve you that you have 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 di-
—
rection 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 dis-
ordered with eating food that was raised forever and
ever before he was bom; good land! a man can't
keep his functions regular on spring chickens thir-
teen 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
86
 " :

A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
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 theyV

;

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 hydraiilic; 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
coimtry. In fact, he was glad to see her, glad to
hear her tale: with that adventure of hers to oflEer,
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 some-
thing, and intimated that he had been wondering
to himself what I had wanted to ask the girl all those
questions for.
87
 —
MARK TWAIN
"Why, great gims," I said, "don't I want to find
the castle? And how else would
go about it?" I
"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 en- —
gaged 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 and stopped,
to myself
a little confused; then I said, "Never mind, now;
I'll tell you some time."
And might he see her? Wotild I let him see her
some day ?
It was; but a Httle thing to promise thirteen hun- —
—
dred years or so and he so eager; so I said Yes.
But I sighed; I couldn't help it. And yet there was
no sensft in sighing, for she wasn't bom yet. But
that is the way we are made we : don't reason, where
we feel ; we just feel.
My expedition was
the talk that day and that
all

night, and the boys were very good to me, and made
88
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
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 aU. 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 occiured to one of them to reflect that if I
was such a wonderful necromancer as I was pretend-
ing 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 aroimd your body, for a sort of cushion and
to keep aS. 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 ma-

terial in the world for a nightshirt, yet plenty used
89
 MARK TWAIN
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 yotir legs, and your cuisses
on your thighs then come your back-plate and yoiu-
;

breast-plate, and you begin to feel crowded; then you

hitch onto the breast-plate 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
iroiv 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-mold. 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 aU the rest of him, from neck
90
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
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 aU 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 dis- ^

appointed. They carry you out, just as they carry

a sunstruck 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.
91
 MARK TWAIN
And so we started, and everybody gave us a good-
by and waved their handkerchiefs or hehnets.
And everybody we met, going down the hill and
through the was respectful to us, except some
village,
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, be-

cause 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 soli-
tudes in the early cool morning in the first freshness
of autumn. From hilltops we saw fair green valleys
Ijong 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 nmlets went frisking and
gossiping over its reefs and making a sort of whisper-
ing 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
93
 —
MARK TWAIN
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 some-
where, 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
jit 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 cotddn'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
94
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
worse and the harder to bear. ^Yes, the thing that
xf
you can't get is the thing that you want, mainly;
every one has noticed that. Well, it took my mind
off from evers^thing else; took it clear off, and cen-
tered 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 first, and
comfort
style afterward. So we jogged along, and now
and then we struck a stretch of dust, and it would
t\mible 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 lone-
some 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 bandana, he coiild keep his hardware, for
all of me.

Meantime, it was getting hotter and hotter in

there. You see, the stm was beating down and
95
 —
MARK TWAIN
warming up the iron more and more all the time.
Well, when you are hot, that way, every little thing
irritates you. When 1 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 wheel-
barrow 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.
WeU, you know, when you perspire that way, in
rivers, there comes a time when you —
^when you —
/weU, when you itch. You are inside, your hands
are outside; so there you are; nothing but iron be-
tween. 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 Uke, 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
96
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
wrtainty —^he only minded the shaking enough to
lihangefrom 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 annojang
fact was borne in upon my tmderstanding ^that we —
were weather-bound. An armed novice cannot
motmt his horse without help and plenty of it.
Sandy was not enough; not enough for me, anyway.
We had to wait somebody should come along.
until
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 could ever have learned to wearV
men
armor, considering its inconveniences; and how they
liad managed to keep up such a fashion for genera-
97
 MARK TWAIN
tions 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
L 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 go-
ing 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 chum, 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 blather-
skite; 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; theway 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."
98
 -

CHAPTER XIII

FREEMEN

it is strange how little a while at a time a

YES,
person can be contented. Only a little while
back, when I was riding and stiffering, what a heaven
this peace, this rest, this sweet serenity in this se-
cluded shady nook by this purling stream would
have seemed, where I could keep perfectly comfort-
able 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 Hght 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 improvi-
dence 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 ba.sket 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 smug-
gle a couple of sandwiches into my helmet, but
I was interrupted in the act, and had to make
99
 MARK TWAIN
an excuse and lay them aside, and a dog got
them.
Night approached, and with it a storm. The dark-
ness 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 Ali-
sande 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 under-

neath; 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 bobtailed iron petti-
coat I should be embarrassed.
With the storm came a change of weather; and
the stronger the wind blew, and the wilder the rain
lashed around, the colder and colder it got. Pretty
soon, various kinds o^ bugs and ants and worms
and things began to flock in out of the wet and
crawldown Inside my armor to get warm; and while
some of tnem behaved well enough, and snuggled
up amongst my clothesand got quiet, the majority
were of a uncomfortable sort, and never
restless,
stayed stiU, but went on prowling and hunting for
they did not know what; especially the ants, which
went tickling along in wearisome procession from
one end of me to the other by the hour, and are a
kind of creatures which I never wish to sleep with
again. It would be my advice to persons situated
in this way, to not roll or thrash around, because this
excites the interest of all the different sorts of ani-
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
mals and makes every last one of them want to turn
out and see what is going on, and this makes things
worse than they were before, and of course makes
you objurgate harder, too, if you can. Still, if one
did not roU and thrash around he would die; so
perhaps it is as well to do one way as the other;
there is no real choice. Even after I was frozen
solid I could still distinguish that tickling, just as
a corpse does when he is taking electric treatment.
1 said I would never wear armor after this trip.
AU those trjdng hours whilst I was frozen and yet
was in a living fire, as you may say, on account of
that swarm of crawlers, that same unanswerable
question kept circling and circling through my tired
head: How do people stand this miserable armor?
How have they managed to stand it all these genera-
tions How can they sleep at night for dreading
?

the tortures of next day?

When the morning came at last, I was in a bad
enough plight seedy, drowsy, fagged, from want of
:

sleep; weary from thrashing aroimd, famished from

long fasting; pining for a bath, and to get rid of the
animals; and crippled with rheumatism. And how
had it fared with the nobly born, the titled aristo-
crat, theDemoiselle Alisande la Carteloise? Why,
she was as fresh as a squirrel; she had slept like the
dead; and as for a bath, probably neither she nor
any other noble in the land had ever had one, and
so she was not missing it. Measured by modem
standards, they were merely modified savages, those/
people. This noble lady showed no impatience to^
get to breakfast —and that smacks of the savage,
lOI
 MARK TWAIN
too. On their jotimeys those Britons were used to
long fasts, and knew how to bear them; and also
how to freight up against probable fasts before
starting, after the style of the Indian and the ana-
conda. As like as not, Sandy was loaded for a
three-day stretch.
We were off before sunrise, Sandy riding and I
limping along behind. In half an hour we came
upon a group of ragged poor creatiu-es who had as-
sembled to mend the thing which was regarded as
a road. They were as humble as animals to me;
and when I proposed to breakfast with them, they
were so flattered, so overwhelmed by this extraor-
dinary condescension of mine that at first they were
not able to believe that I was in earnest. My lady
put up her scornful lip and withdrew to one side;
she said in their hearifig that she would as soon
think of eating with the other cattle a remark —
which embarrassed these poor devils merely because
it referred to them, and not because it insulted or

offended them, for it didn't. And yet they were not

'slaves, not chattels. By a sarcasm__^_ law and
pihrase they were freemen. T^Eeyeiktenths of the free
population :of' the country were of just their class
and degree: small "independent" farmers, artisans,
'etc. which is to say,they were the nation, the actual
;

Nation; they were about aU of it that was useful,

or worth saving, or really respectworthy, and to
subtract them would have been to subtract the
Nation and leave behind some dregs, some refuse,
in the shape of a king, nobility and gentry, idle, un-
productive, acquainted mainly wjch the arts of
I02
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
wasting and destroying, and of no sort of use or
value in any rationally oonstructed world. [And
yet, by ingenious contrivance, this gilded minority,
instead of being in the tail of the procession where
it belonged, was marching head up and banners
flying, at the other end of it; had elected itself to
be the Nation, and these innumerable clams had per-
mitted it so long that they had come at last to ac-
cept it as a truth; and not only that, but to believe
it and as it should be. The priests had told
right
~
their fathers and themselves that this ironical state
of things was ordained of God and so, not reflecting
;

upon how unlike God it would be to amuse himself

with sarcasms, and especially such poor transparent
ones as this, they had dropped the matter there and
become respectfully quiet. 3
The talk of these meek people had a strange
enough sound in a formerly American ear. They >

were freemen, but they could not leave the estates

of their lord or their bishop without his permission;
they cotild not prepare their own bread, but must
have their com grotmd and their bread baked at his
mill and his bakery, and pay roundly for the same;
they could not sell a piece of their own property
without paying him a handsome percentage of the
proceeds, nor buy a piece of somebody else's without
remembering him in cash for the privilege; they had
to harvest his grain for him gratis, and be ready to
come at a moment's notice, leaving their own crop
to destruction by the threatened storm; they had to
let him plant fruit trees in their fields, and then
keep their indignation to themselves when his heed-
103
 MARK TWAIN
less fndt-gatherers trampled the grain arottnd the
trees; they had to smother their anger when his
hiinting-parties galloped through their fields lajong
waste the restilt of their patient toil; they were not
allowed to keep doves themselves, and when the
swarms from my lord's dovecote settled on their
crops they must not lose their temper and kiU a
bird, for awful would the penalty be; when the
harvest was at last gathered, then came the pro-
cession of robbers to levy their blackmail upon it:
first the Church carted off its fat tenth, then the

king's commissioner took his twentieth, then my

lord's people made a mighty inroad upon the re^
mainder; after which, the skinned freeman had
liberty to 'bestow the remnant in his bam, in case
it was worth the trouble there were taxes, and taxes,
;

and taxes, and more taxes, and taxes again, and yet
other taxes —^upon this free and independent pauper,
but none upon his lord the baron or the bishop, none
upon the wasteftd nobility or the all-devouring
Chtu-ch; if the baron would sleep unvexed, the free-
man must sit up all night after his day's work and
whip the ponds to keep the frogs quiet; if the free-
—
man's daughter ^but no, that last infamy of mon-
archical government is unprintable; and finally, if
the freeman, grown desperate with his tortures,
found his unendurable under such conditions, and
life

and fled to death for mercy and refuge,

sacrificed it
the gentle Church condemned him to eternal fire,
the gentle law buried him at midnight at the cross-
roads with a stake through his back, and his master
the baron or the bishop confiscated all his prop-
104
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
erty and tvtrned his widow and his orphans out of
doors.
And here were these freemen assembled in the
early morning to work on their lord the bishop's road
—
three days each gratis; every head of a family, and
every son of a fanuly, three days each, gratis, and
a day or so added for their servants. Why, it was
like reading about France and the French, before the
ever memorable and blessed Revolution, which swept;,
a thousand years of such villany away in one swift
tidal wave of blood —
one: a settlement of that hoary-
debt in the proportion of half a drop of blood for
each hogshead of it that had been pressed by slow
tortures out of that people in the weary stretch of
ten centuries of wrong and shame and misery the
like ofwhich was not to be mated but in heU. There
were two "Reigns of Terror," if we would but remem-
ber it and consider it; the one wrought murder in
hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the
one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a
thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten
thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions;
but otu- shudders are all for the "horrors" of the
minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak;
whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the
ax compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold,
insult, cruelty, and heartbreak? What is swift
death by lightning compared with death by slow fire
at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the
coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all
been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn
over; but all France cotild hardly contaia the coffins
los
 —
MARK TWAIN
filled by that older and real Terror— ^that unspeak-
ably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has
been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.
These poor ostensible freemen who were sharing
their breakfast and their talk with me, were as full
of humble reverence for their king and Church and
nobility as their worst enemy could desire. There
was something pitifully ludicrous about it. I asked
them if they supposed a nation of people ever existed,
who, with a free vote in every man's hand, would
elect that a single family and its descendants should
reign over it whether gifted or boobies, to
forever,
the exclusion of all other famiUes ^including the —
voter's; and would also elect that a certain hundred
families should be raised to dizzy summits of rank,
and clothed on with offensive transmissible glories
and privileges to the exclusion of the rest of the
nation's families including his own.
They looked unhit, and said they didn't know;
all

that they had never thought about it before, and it

hadn't ever occurred to them that a nation could be
so situated that every man could have a say in the
government. I said I had seen one and that it —
would last vintil it had an Established Church. Again
—
they were all unhit ^at first. But presently one
man looked up and asked me to state that proposition
again; and state it slowly, so it coiild soak into his
understanding. I did it and after a little he had the
;

idea, and he brought his fist down and said he didn't

believe a nation where every man had a vote would
volimtarily get down in the mud and dirt in any
such way and that to steal from a nation its will and
;

io6
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
preference must be a crime and the first of all
crimes. I said to myself:
"This one's a man. If I were backed by enough
of his sort, I would make a strike for the welfare
of this country, and try to prove myself its loyalest
citizen by making a wholesome change in its system
of government."
You see my kind of loyalty was loyalty to one's /
country, not to its institutions or its office-holders.
The country is the real thing, the substantial thing,

the eternal thing; it is the thing to watch over, and

care for,and be loyal to; institutions are extraneous,
they are its mere clothing, and clothing can wear

out, become ragged, cease to be comfortable, cease

to protect the body from winter, disease, and death.
To be loyal to rags, to shout for rags, to worship
rags, to die for rags —
^that is a loyalty of unreason,
it ispure animal; it belongs to monarchy, was in-
vented by monarchy; let monarchy keep it. I was
from Connecticut, whose Constitution declares "that
all politicalpower is inherent in the people, and all
free governments are founded on their authority and
instituted for their benefit and that they have at all
;

times an undeniable and indefeasible right to alter

their form of government in such a manner as they
may think expedient."
Under that gospel, the citizen who thinks he sees
that the commonwealth's poHtical clothes are worn
out, and yet holds his peace and does not agitate
for a new suit, is disloyal; he is a traitor. That he
may be the only one who thinks he sees this decay,
does not excuse him; it is his duty to agitate anyway,
107
 MARK TWAIN
and it is the duty of the others to vote him down if

they do not see the matter as he does.

And now here I was, in a country where a right to
say how the country should be governed was re-
stricted to six persons in each thousand of its popu-
lation. For the nine hundred and ninety-four to
express dissatisfaction with the regnant system and
propose to change it, would have made the whole
six shudder as one man, it would have been so dis-
loyal, so dishonorable, such putrid black treason.
So to speak, I was become a stockholder in a cor-
poration where nine hundred and ninety-four of the
members fximished all the money and did all the
work, and the other six elected themselves a perma-
nent board of direction and took all the dividends.
It seemed to me that what the nine hundred and
ninety-four dupes needed was a new deal. The
thing that would have best suited the circus side of
my nature would have been to resign the Boss-ship
and get up an insurrection and turn it into a revo-
lution; but I knew that the Jack Cade or the Wat
Tyler who tries such a thing without first educating
his materials up to revolution grade is almost abso-
lutely certain to get left. I had never been accus-
tomed to getting left, even if I do say it myself.
Wherefore, the "deal" which had been for some
time working into shape in my mind was of a quite
different pattern from the Cade-Tyler sort.
So I did not talk blood and instirrection to that
man there who sat mimching black bread with that
abused and mistaught herd of human sheep, but
took him aside and talked matter of another sort to
io8
 — "

A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
him. After I had finished, I got him to lend me a
ink from his veins; and with this and a
little sliver
I wrote on a piece of bark

Put him in the Man-factory—

and gave it to him, and said:
"Take it to the palace at Camelot and give it

into the hands of Amyas le Potilet, whom I call

Clarence, and he wiU understand."
"He a priest, then," said the man, and some ol
is

the enthusiasm went out of his face.

—
"How a priest? Didn't I tell you that no
chattel of the Church, no bond-slave of pope or
bishop can enter my Man-factory? Didn't I tell
you that you coixldn't enter unless your religion, /
whatever it might be, was your own free property?"
"Marry, it is so, and for that I was glad; where-
fore it liked me not, and bred in me a cold doubt, to
hear of this priest being there."
"But he isn't a priest, I tell you."
The man looked far from satisfied. He said:
"He is not a priest, and yet can read?"
"He is not a priest and yet can read ^yes, and —
write, too, for that matter. I taught him myself."
The man's face cleared. "And it is the first thing

that you yourself will be taught in that Factory

—
"I? would give blood out of my heart to know
I
that art. Why, I wiU be your slave, your—"
"No you won't, you won't be anybody's slave^
Take your family and go along. Your lord the
bishop will confiscate your small property, but no
matter. Clarence will fix you all right."
109
 CHAPTER XIV
"defend thee, lord"

PAID three pennies for my breakfast, and a most

I extravagant price it was, too, seeing that one
could have breakfasted a dozen persons for that
money; but I was feeling good by this time, and I
had always been a kind of spendthrift anyway; and
then these people had wanted to give me the food for
nothing, scant as their provision was, and so it was a
grateful pleasure to emphasize my appreciation and
sincere thankfulness with a good big financial lift
where the money would do so much more good than
it would in my helmet, where, these pennies being

made of iron and not stinted in weight, my half-

dollar's worth was a good deal of a burden to me.
I spent money rather too freely in those days, it is

true ; but one reason for it was that

hadn't got the
I
proportions of things entirely adjusted, even yet,
after so long a sojourn in Britain —
^hadn't got along
to where I was able to absolutely realize that a
penny in Arthur's land and a couple of dollars in
Connecticut were about one and the same thing: just
twins, as you may say, in purchasing-power. If my
start from Camelot could have been delayed a very
few days I could have paid these people in beautiful
new coins from ovu: own mint, and that would have
no
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
pleased me; and them, too, not I had adopted
less.
^
the American values exclusively. In a week or two
now, cents, nickels, dim.es, quarters, and half-dollars,
and also a trifle of gold, wotdd be trickling in thin but
steady streams all through the commercial veins of
the kingdom, and I looked to see this new blood
freshenup its life.
The farmers were bound to throw in something, to
sort of offset my liberality, whether I would or no ; so
I let them give me a and steel; and as soon as
flint

they had comfortably bestowed Sandy and me on our

horse, I lit my pipe. When the first blast of smoke
shot out through the bars of my helmet, all those
people broke for the woods, and Sandy went over
backward and struck the ground with a diill thud.
They thought I was one of those fire-belching dragons
they had heard so much about from knights and other
professional liars. I had infinite trouble to persuade
those people to venture back within explaining dis-
tance. Then I told them that this was only a bit of
enchantment which would work harm to none but
my enemies. And I promised, with my hand on my
heart, that aU who felt no enmity toward me wotdd
if

come forward and pass before me they should see

that only those who remained behind would be
struck dead. The procession moved with a good deal
of promptness. There were no casualties to report,
for nobody had curiosity enough to remain behind
to see what would happen.
I lost some time, now, for these big children, their
fears gone, became so ravished with wonder over my
awe-compelling fireworks that I had to stay there and
III
 MARK TWAIN
smoke a couple of pipes out before they would let me
go. Still the delay was not wholly unproductive, for
it took aU that time to get Sandy thoroughly wonted
to the new thing, she being so close to it, you know.
It plugged up her conversation-null, too, for a consid-
erable while, and that was a gain. But above all
other benefits accruing, I had learned something. I
was ready for any giant or any ogre that might come
along, now.
We tarried with a holy hermit, that night, and my
opportunity came about the middle of the next after-
noon. Wewere crossing a vast meadow by way of
short cut, I was musing absently, hearing noth-
and
ing, seeing nothing, when Sandy suddenly interrupted
a remark which she had begim that morning, with the
cry:
"Defend —
thee, lord! ^peril of hfe is toward!"
And she slipped down from the horse and ran a
little way and stood. I looked up and saw, far off in
armed knights and
the shade of a tree, half a dozen
their and straightway there was bustle
sqtdres;
among them and tightening of saddle-girths for the
^ mount. My pipe was ready and would have been
lit, if I had not been lost in thinking about how to
~!i

banish oppression from this land and restore to all

its people their stolen rights and manhood without

.^isobliging anybody. I lit up at once, and by the

time I had got a good head of reserved steam on,
here they came. All together, too; none of those
chivalrous magnanimities which one reads so much
—
about one courtly rascal at a time, and the rest
standing by to see fair play. No, they came in a
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 ;

A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
body, they came with a whir and a rush, they came
like a volley from a battery; came with heads low
down, plumes streaming out behind, lances advanced
at a level. was a handsome sight, a beautiful sight
It
—for a man up a tree. I laid my lance in rest and
waited, with my heart beating, till the iron wave was
just ready to break over me, then spouted a column
of white smoke through the bars of my helmet. You
should have seen the wave go to pieces and scatter!
This was a finer sight than the other one.
But these people stopped, two or three hundred
yards away, and this troubled me. My satisfaction
collapsed, and fear came; I judged I was a lost man.
But Sandy was radiant and was going to be eloquent
;

but I stopped her, and told her my magic had mis-

carried, somehow or other, and she must mount, with
all despatch, and we must ride for life. No, she
wouldn't. She said that my enchantment had dis-
abled those knights; they were not riding on, be-
cause they couldn't; wait, they would drop out of
their saddles presently, and we would get their
horses and harness. I could not deceive such trust-
ing simplicity, so I said it was a mistake thrt when
;

my fireworks killed at all, they killed instantly; no,

the men would not die, there was something wrong
about my apparatus, I couldn't tell what; but we
must, hurry and get away, for those people would
attack us again, in a minute. Sandy laughed, and
said:
"Lack-a-day, sir, they be not of that breed! Sir
Launcelot will give battle to dragons, and will abide
by them, and will assail them again, and yet again,
"3
 "
;

MARK TWAIN
and still again, tmtil he do conquer and destroy them
and so likewise will Sir Pellinore and Sir Aglovale and
Sir Carados, and mayhap others, but there be none
else that will venture it, let the idle say what the
idle will. And, la, as to yonder base rufilers, think
ye they have not their fill, but yet desire more?"
"Well, then, what are they waiting for? Why
don't they leave? Nobody's hindering. Good land,
I'm willing to let bygones be bygones, I'm siire."
"Leave, is it? Oh, give thyself easement as to
that. They dream not of it, no, not they. They
wait to yield them."
"Come—^really, is that 'sooth' —as you people
say? If they want to, why don't they?"
"It would like them much; but an ye wot how
dragons are esteemed, ye wotdd not hold them blam-
able. They fear to come."
"Well, then, suppose I go to them instead, and
—
"Ah, wit ye well they would not abide yotu: com-
ing. I will go."
And she did. She was a handy person to have
along on a raid. I would have considered this a
doubtful errand, myself. I presently saw the knights
riding away, and Sandy coming back. That was a
relief. I judged she had somehow failed to get the
first innings — I mean in the conversation ; otherwise
the interview wouldn't have been so short. But it

turned out that she had managed the business well;

in fact, admirably. She said that when she told
those peoplewas The Boss, it hit them where they
I

lived: "smote them sore with fear and dread" was

her word; and then they were ready to put up with
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 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
anything she might require. So she swore them to
appear at Arthur's cotu-t within two days and yield
them, with horse and harness, and be my knight?
henceforth, and subject to my command. How
much better she managed that thing than I shouW
have done it myself! She was a daisy.

"5
 "

CHAPTER XV
Sandy's tale

" AND so I'm proprietor of some knights," said I,

f\ as we rode off. " Who would ever have sup-
posed that I should live to list up assets of that sort.
I sha'n't know what to do with them; unless I raffle
them off. How many of them are there, Sandy?"
"Seven, please you, sir, and their squires."
"It is a good haul. Who are they? Where do
they hang out?"
"Where do they hang out?"
"Yes, where do they live?"
"Ah, I understood thee not. That will I tell
eftsoons." Then she said musingly, and softly, turn-
ing the words daintily over her tongue Hang they
'

'

—
:

— —
out ^hang they out ^where hang ^where do they
hang out eh, right so where do they hang out. Of
; ;

a truth the phrase hath a fair and winsome grace, and

is prettily worded withal. I will repeat it anon and
anon in mine idlesse, whereby I may peradventure
learn it. Where do they hang out. Even so! al-
ready it falleth trippingly from my tongue, and foras-
much as
—
"Don't forget the cowboys, Sandy."
"Cowboys?"
"Yes; the knights, you know: You were going to
ii6
 " ;

A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
tellme about them. A while back, you remember.
Figuratively speaking, game's called."
"Game—"
"Yes, yes, yes! Go to the bat. I mean, get to
work on your statistics, and don't bum so much
kindling getting your fire started. Tell me about the
knights."
"I will well, and lightly will begin. So they two
departed and rode into a great forest. And —
"Great Scott!"
Yousee, I recognized my mistake at once. I had
set her works a-going; it was my own fault; she
would be thirty days getting down to those facts.
And she generally began without a preface and
finished without a result. If you interrupted her she
would either go right along without noticing, or
answer with a couple of words, and go back and say
the sentence over again. So, interruptions only did
harm; and yet I had to interrupt, and interrupt
pretty frequently, too, in order to save my life; a
person would die if he let her monotony drip on
him right along all day.
"Great Scott!" I said in my distress. She went
right back and began over again:
So they two departed and rode into a great forest.
'
'

And—"
"Which two?"
"Sir Gawaine andSir Uwaine. And so they came
to an abbey of monks, and there were well lodged.
So on the mom they heard their masses in the abbey,
and so they rode forth till they came to a great forest
then was Sir Gawaine ware in a valley by a turret, of
IT?
 " " " —
MARK TWAIN
twelve fair damsels, and two knights armed on great
horses, and the damsels went to and fro by a tree.
And then was Sir Gawaine ware how there hung a
white shield on that tree, and ever as the damsels
came by it they spit upon it, and some threw mire
upon the shield
—
"Now, hadn't seen the like myself in this
if I
country, Sandy, I wouldn't believe it. But I've seen
it, and I can just see those creatures now, parading

before that shield and acting like that. The women

here do certainly act like all possessed. Yes, and I
mean your best, too, society's very choicest brands.
The humblest hello-girl along ten thousand miles of
wire could teach gentleness, patience, modesty, man-
ners, to the highest duchess in Arthur's land."
"Hello-girl?"
"Yes, but don't you ask me to explain; it's a new
kind of a girl; they don't have them here; one often
speaks sharply to them when they are not the least
in fault, and he can't get over feeling sorry for it
and ashamed of himself in thirteen hundred years,
it'ssuch shabby mean conduct and so unprovoked;
the fact is, no gentleman ever does it though I
Well, I myself, if I've got to confess
——
" Peradventure she —
"Never mind her; never mind her; I tell you I
couldn't ever explain her so you would understand."
"Even so be it, sith ye are so minded. Then Sir
Gawaine and Sir Uwaine went and saluted them,
and ^sked them why they did that despite to the
shield. Sirs, said the damsels, we shall tell you.
There is a knight in this country that owneth this
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
white shield, and he is a passing good man of his
hands, but he hateth all ladies and gentlewomen,
and therefore we do all this despite to the shield. I
will say you, said Sir Gawaine, it beseemeth evil a
good knight to despise all ladies and gentlewomen,
and peradventure though he hate you he hath some
cause, and peradventure he loveth in some other
places ladies and gentlewomen, and to be loved
again, and he such a man of prowess as ye speak
of—"
"Man of prowess — ^yes, that is the man to please
them, Sandy. Man of brains—that is a thing they -

never think of. Tom Sayers—^John Heenan—^John

L. Sullivan —
pity but you could be here. You
would have your legs under the Round Table and a
'
Sir in front of your names within the twenty-f oiu:
'

hours; and you could bring about a new distribu-

tion of the married princesses and duchesses of the
Court in another twenty-four. The fact is, it is
just a sort of polished-up court of Comanches, and
there isn't a squaw in it who doesn't stand ready at
the dropping of a hat to desert to the buck with the
biggest string of scalps at his belt."
—"and he be such a man of prowess as ye speak
of, said Sir Gawaine. Now, what is his name? Sir,
said they, his name is Marhaus the king's son of
Ireland."
"Son you mean; the other
of the king of Ireland,
form doesn't mean And look out and
anything.
hold on tight, now, we must jump this gully. . . .

There, we are all right now. This horse belongs in /

the circus; he is born before his time."

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 " "

MARK TWAIN
"I know him well," said Sir Uwaine, he is pass-
ing good knight as any is on live."

"On live. If you've got a fault in the world,

Sandy, it is that you are a shade too archaic. But
any matter."
it isn't
—"for I saw him once proved at a justs where
many knights were gathered, and that time there
might no man withstand him. As, said Sir Gawaine,
damsels, methinketh ye are to blame, for it is to
suppose he that himg 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. 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. 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. Then the one of the knights of the
tower dressed his shield, and said on high. Sir Mar-
haus defend thee. 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 —
"Well, that is just the trouble about this state of
things, it ruins so many horses."
"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
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 " "

A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
that ought to be broken up. I don't see how people
with any feeling can applaud and support it."

"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. I judged that the Irish
knight was in trouble with the visitors by this time,
and this turned out to be the case.
— "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
—
"The truth is, Alisande, the 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 aU alike: a couple of people come to-
—
gether 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 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 random-
ing in, and brast his spear, and the other man brast
his shield, and down 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
121
 " "

MARK TWAIN
another, till used up; and when
the material is all

you come up
to figure you can't tell one
results,
fight from another, nor who whipped; and as a
picture, of Hving, raging, roaring battle, sho! why,
it's pale and noiseless —
just ghosts scuffling in a fog.
Dear me, what would this barren vocabulary get out
—
of the mightiest spectacle? ^the burning of Rome
in Nero's time, for instance? Why, it would merely
say, 'Town burned down; no insurance; boy brast a
window, fireman brake his neck!' Why, that ain't
a picture!"
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:
"Then Sir Marhaus turned his horse and rode
toward Gawaine with his spear. 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."
— '
but Sir Marhaus's spear held and therewith Sir
'

Gawaine and his horse rushed down to the earth

;

—
—"and —
"Just so and brake his back."
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
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 — " " : " —
A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
other. But Sir Gawaine, fro it passed nine of the
dock, waxed by the space of three hours ever
stronger and stronger, and thrice his might was
increased. 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
N-e-e-ew Haven ten minutes for refreshments
'
' !

knductr '11 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'wanners, s-a-n-d' ch.es,
!"
p o;^-com
—"and waxed past noon and drew toward even-
song. Gawaine's strength feebled and waxed
Sir
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
Httle would one of these people mind a small thing
like that."
—"and Knight, said Sir Marhaus, I have
so. Sir

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 there-

fore it were a pity to do you hurt, for I feel you

are passing feeble. Ah, said Sir Gawaine, gentle
knight, ye say the word that I should say. And
therewith they took off their helms and either kissed
other, and there they swore together either to love
other as brethren
—
123
 "

MARK TWAIN
But I lost the thread there, and dozed off to slum-
ber, 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 bom at a time when they could put
it to some useful purpose. 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. It is a mixture
that is always ineffectual, and should never have been
attempted in the first place. And yet, once you
start a mistake, the trouble is done and you never
know what going to come of it.
is

When came
to myself again and began to listen,
I
I perceived that I had lost another chapter, and
that Alisande had wandered a long way off with her
peoplg.
"And so they rode and came into a deep valley
fxill 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. In
this country, said Sir Marhaus, came never knight
since it was christened, but he fotmd strange ad-
ventures
—
'

' This is not good form, Alisande. 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.
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 " " "

A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
It isa common literary device with the great authors./'
You should make him say, 'In this country, be
jabers, came never knight since it was christened,
but he found strange adventures, be jabers.' You
see how much better that sounds."
—
" came never knight but he fotmd strange
ad-
ventures, be jabers. Of a truth it doth indeed, fair
lord, albeit 'tis passing hard to say, though per-
adventure that will not tarry but better speed with
usage. 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?"
—
"Even so, dear lord ^and her hair was white
—
under the garland
"Celluloid teeth, nine dollars a set, as like as not
— go up and down like a port-
the loose-fit kind, that
cullis when you eat, and fall out when you laugh."
"The second damsel was of thirty winter of age,
with a circlet of gold about her head. 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!
Fifteen! Break —^my heart! oh, my lost darling!

Just her age who was so gentle, and lovely, and all
the world to me, and whom I shall never see again!
How the thought of her carries me back over wide
seas ofmemory 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!" just to hear her deaf
i«5
 —
MARK TWAIN
!"
come melting back to me with a Hello, Hank
'
voice '

that was music of the spheres to my enchanted ear.

\/ She got three dollars a week, but she was worth it.
I could not foUow Alisande's further explanation
of who our captured knights were, now — Imean in
case she should ever get to explaining who they
were. M.y interest was gone, my thoughts were far
away, and sad. By fitftil 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 adventtires, and meet
again and lie, after year and day. Year and day
and without baggage. It was of a piece with the
general simplicity of the country.
The sun was now setting. It was about three ia
the afternoonwhen Alisande had begun to teU me
who the cowboys were so she had made pretty good
;

progress with it— ^for *ifcr. She would arrive some

time or other, no doubt, but she was not a person
who could be hurried.
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.
Itwas the largest castle we had seen, and so I thought
itmight be the one we were after, but Sandy said no.
She did not know who owned it; she said she had
passed it without calling, when she went down to
Camelot.
126
 CHAPTER XVI
MORGAN LE FAY

knights errant were to be believed, not all

IFcastles were desirable places to seek hospitality
in. As a matter of fact, knights errant were not
—
persons to be believed ^that is, measured by modem
standards of veracity; yet, measured by the stand-
ards of their own and scaled accordingly, you
time,
got the truth. was very simple: you discounted
It
a statement ninety-seven per cent. the rest was fact.
;

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 —was the sensible thing to do. So I was
^it

pleased when I saw in the distance a horseman mak-

ing the bottom turn of the road that wound down
from this castle.
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. However, I
had to smile at my own forgetfulness when I got
nearer and read this sign on his tabard:
—
" Persimmons' s Soap All the Prime-Donne Use It."
That was a little idea of my own, and had several
wholesome purposes in view toward the civilizing and
127
 :

MARK TWAIN
uplifting of this nation. In the first place, it was a
furtive, underhand blow at this nonsense of knight
errantry, though nobody suspected that but me. I
had started a number of these people out the —
—
bravest knights I could get each sandwiched be-
tween 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 ridicu-
lous and then, even the steel-clad ass that hadn't any
;

board would himself begin to look ridiculous because

he was out of the fashion.
Secondly, these missionaries would gradually, and
without creating suspicion or exciting alarm, intro-
duce a rudimentary cleanliness among the nobility,
and from them it wotild work down
to the people, if
the priests covld be kept quiet.This would under-
mine the Church. I mean would be a step toward
that. — —
Next, education ^next, freedom and then
she would begin to crumble. 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. Why, in my own former
day — remote centuries not yet stirring in the
^in
—
womb of time ^there were old Englishmen who
imagined that they had been bom 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.
My missionaries were taught to spell out the gilt
—
signs on their tabards the showy gilding was a neat
128
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
idea, I could have got the king to wear a btilletin-
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.

The missionary's nextmove was to get the family
together and try on himself; he was to stop at no
it

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 ftill of them; saints they called themselves, and
saints they were believed to be. They were unspeak-
ably holy, and worked miracles, and everybody
stood in awe of them. If a hermit could survive a
wash, and that failed to convince a duke, give him
up, lethim alone.
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. As a consequence the workers in the
field were increasing by degrees, and the reform was
steadily spreading. My soap factory felt the strain
early. 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 sor"-
of fainting and gasping around and said he did not
believe he coxdd stand it much longer, and Sir Laun-
celot 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
!39
 :

MARK TWAIN
he v/anted plenty of air; and he was always com
was no place for a soap factory
plaining that a palace
anyway, and said if a man was to start one in his
house he would be damned if he wouldn't strangle
him. There were ladies present, too, but much these
people evor cared for that; they would swear before
children, if the wind was their way when the factory
was going.
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 Arthiur, and wife of
King Uriens, monarch of a realm about as big as the
District of —
Columbia ^you cotdd stand in the middle
of it and throw bricks into the next kingdom.
"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 ptilled up
because they couldn't stretch out without a passport.
La Cote was much depressed, for he had scored
here the worst failure of his campaign. He had not
worked a cake; yet he had tried all the tricks of
off
the trade, even to the washing of a hermit; but the
hermit died. This was. indeed, a bad failure, for
this animal would now be dubbed a martyr, and
would take his place among the saints of the Roman
calendar. Thus made he his moan, this poor Sir La
Cote Male Taile, and sorrowed passing sore. And
so my heart bled for him, and I was moved to com-
fort and stay him. Wherefore I said
"Forbear to grieve, fair knight, for this is not a
defeat. We have brains, you and I; and for such
as have brains there are no defeats, but only victories.
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 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
Observe how we will turn this seeming disaster into
an advertisement; an advertisement for our soap;
and the biggest one, to draw, that was ever thought
of; an advertisement that will transform that Mount
Washington defeat into a Matterhom victory. We
will put on your bulletin-board, 'Patronized by the
Elect. ' How does that strike you ?"
"Verily, wonderly bethought!"
it is

"Well, a body is bound to admit that for just a

modest little one-line ad., it's a corker."

So the poor colporteur's griefs vanished away.
He was a brave fellow, and had done mighty feats
of arms in his time. His chief celebrity rested upon
the events of an exciursion like this one of mine, which
he had once made with a damsel named Maledisant,
who was as handy with her tongue as was Sandy,
though in a different way, for her tongue churned
forth only railings and insult, whereas Sandy's
music was of a kindlier sort. I knew his story well,
and so I knew how to interpret the compassion thsit,^
was in his face when he bade me farewell. He
supposed I was having a bitter hard time of it.
Sandy and I discussed his story, as we[rode along,
and she said that La Cote's bad luck had begun with
the very beginning of that trip; for the king's fool
had overthrown him on the first day, and in such
cases it was customary for the girl to desert to the
conqueror, but Maledisant didn't do it; and also

persisted afterward in sticking to him, after all his

defeats. But, said I, suppose the victor should de-
cline to accept his spoil ? She said that that wouldn't
answer — ^he must. He couldn't decline; it wouldn't
131
 MARK TWAIN
be regular. I made a note of that. If Sandy's
music got to be too burdensome, some time, I would
let a knight defeat me, on the chance that she would
desert to him.
In due time we were challenged by the warders,
from the castle walls, and after a parley admitted.
I have nothing pleasant to tell about that visit. But
it was not a disappointment, for I knew Mrs. le Fay

by reputation, and was not expecting anything

pleasant. She was held in awe by the whole realm,
for she had made everybody believe she was a great
sorceress. All her ways were wicked, aU her instincts
devihsh. She was loaded to the eyelids with cold
malice. was black with crime; and
All her history
among her crimes murder was common. I was
most curious to see her; as curious as I could have
been to see Satan. To my surprise she was beauti-
ful black thoughts had failed to make her expression
;

repulsive, age had failed to wrinkle her satin skin or

mar its bloomy freshness. She could have passed
for old Uriens' granddaughter, she could have been
mistaken for sister to her own son.
As soon as we were fairly within the castle gates
we were ordered into her presence. King Uriens was
there, a kind-faced old man with a subdued look and
;

also the son, Sir Uwaine Blanchemains, in whom

le
I was, of course, interested on account of the tradi-
tion that he had once done battle with thirty knights,
and also on account of his trip with Sir Gawaine and
Sir Marhaus, which Sandy had been aging me with.
But Morgan was the main attraction, the conspicu-
ous personality here; she was head chief of this
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 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
household, that was plain. She caused us to be
seated, and then she began, with all manner of pretty
graces and graciousnesses, to ask me questions. Deai
me, it was like a bird or a flute, or something, talk-
ing. I felt persuaded that this woman must have
been misrepresented, lied about. She trilled along,
and and presently a handsome young
trilled along,
page, clothed like the rainbow, and as easy and un-
dulatory of movement as a wave, came with some-
thing on a golden salver, and, kneeling to present it
to her, overdid his graces and lost his balance, and
so fell lightly against her knee. She slipped a dirk
• into him in as matter-of-course a way as another per-
son would have harpooned a rat!
Poor child! he slumped to the floor, twisted his
silken limbs in one great straining contortion of
pain, and was dead. Out of the old king was wrung
an involuntary "0-h!" of compassion. The look he
got, made him cut it suddenly short and not put
any more hyphens in it. Sir Uwaine, at a sign from
his mother, went to the anteroom and called some
servants, and meanwhile madame went rippling
sweetly along with her talk.
I saw that she was a good housekeeper, for while
she talked she kept a comer of her eye on the
servants to see that they made no balks in handling
the body and getting it out; when they came with
fresh clean towels, she sent back for the other kind;
and when they had finished wiping the floor and
were going, she indicated a crimson fleck the size of
a tear which their duller eyes had overlooked. It
was plain to me that La Cote Male Taile had failed
133
 : ;

MARK TWAIN
to see the mistress of the house. Often, how louder
and clearer than any tongue, does dumb circum-
stantial evidence speak.
Morgan le Fay rippled along as musically as ever.
Marvelous woman. And what a glance she had:
when it fell in reproof upon those servants, they
shrunk and quailed as timid people do when the
Hghtning flashes out of a cloud. I could have got
the habit myself. It was the same with that poor
old Brer Uriens; he was always on the ragged edge
of apprehension she could not even turn toward him
;

but he winced.
In the midst of the talk I let drop a complimentary
word about King Arthur, forgetting for the moment
how this woman hated her brother. That one little
compliment was enough. She clouded up like a
storm; she called for her guards, and said:
"Hale me these varlets to the dungeons."
That struck cold on my ears, for her dungeons ha-d
a reputation. Nothing occurred to me to say or —
do. But not so with Sandy. As the guard laid a
hand upon me, she piped up with the tranquilest
confidence, and said
"God's wownds, dost thou covet destruction, thou
maniac? The Boss!"
It is
Now what a happy idea that was —
!
^and so simple
yet would never have occurred to me.
it I was born
modest; not aU over, but in spots; and this was one
of the spots.
The effect upon madame was electrical. It cleared
her countenance and brought back her smiles and all
her persuasive graces and blandishments; but never-
134
 A CONNECTICUT, YANKEE
theless she was not able to entirely cover up with
them the fact that shewas in a ghastly fright. She
said:
"La, but do list to thine handmaid! as if one
gifted with powers like to mine might say the thing
which I have said tinto one who has vanquished
Merlin, and not be jesting. By mine enchantments
I foresaw your coming, and by them I knew you
when you entered here. I did but play this little
jest with hope to surprise you into some display of
your art, as not doubting you would blast the
guards with occult fires, consuming them to ashes on
the spot, a marvel much beyond mine own ability,
yet one which I have long been childishly curious
to see."
The guards were less curious, and got out as soon
as they got permission.

I3S
 CHAPTER XVn
A ROYAL BANQUET
MADAME, seeing me and unresentful,
pacific
no doubt judged that was deceived by her
I
excuse; for her fright dissolved away, and she was
soon so importiinate to have me give an exhibition
and Idll somebody, that the thing grew to be em-
barrassing. However, to my relief she was presently
interrupted by the call to prayers. I will say this
much for the nobility: that, tyrannical, murderous,
rapacious, and morally rotten as they were, they
were deeply and enthusiastically religious. Nothing
could divert them from the regular and faithful per-
formance of the pieties enjoined by the Church.
^ More than once I had seen a noble who had gotten
his enemy at a disadvantage, stop to pray before
cutting his throat; more than once I had seen a
noble, after ambushing and despatching his enemy,
retire to the nearest wayside shrine and humbly give
thanks, without even waiting to rob the body.
There was to be nothing finer or sweeter in the life
of even Benvenuto Cellini, that rough-hewn saint,
ten centuries later. All the nobles of Britain, with
their families, attended divine service morning and
night daily, in their private chapels, and even the
worst of them had family worship five or six times a
136
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
day besides. The credit of this belonged entirely
to the Church. Although I was no friend to that
Catholic Church, I was obliged to admit this. And
often, in spite of me, I found myself saying, "What
would this country be without the Church?"
After prayers we had dinner in a great banqueting-
haU which was lighted by hundreds of grease-jets, and
everything was as fine and lavish and rudely splendid
as might become the royal degree of the hosts. At
the head of the hall, on a dais, was the table of the
king, queen, and their son. Prince Uwaine. Stretch-
ing down the hall from this, was the general table,
on the floor. At this, above the salt, sat the visiting
nobles and the grown members of their families, of
— —
both sexes ^the resident Court, in effect sixty-one
persons; below the salt sat minor officers of the
household, with their principal subordinates: alto-
gether a hundred and eighteen persons sitting, and
about as many liveried servants standing behind
their chairs, or serving in one capacity or another.
It was a very fine show. In a gallery a band with
cymbals, horns, harps, and other horrors, opened
the proceedings with what seemed to be the crude
first-draft or original agony of the wail known to
later centuries as "In the Sweet Bye and Bye."
It was new, and ought to have been rehearsed a little
more. For some reason or other the queen had the
composer hanged, after dinner.
After this music, the priest who stood behind the
royal table said a noble long grace in ostensible
Latin. Then the battalion of waiters broke away
from their posts, and darted, rushed, flew, fetched

137
 MARK TWAIN
and carried, and the mighty feeding began; no words
anywhere, but absorbing attention to business.
The rows of chops opened and shut in vast unison,
and the sound of it was like to the muffled burr of
subterranean machinery.
The havoc continued an hour and a half, and un-
imaginable was the destruction of substantial. Of
the chief feature of the feast — ^the huge wild boar
that lay stretched out so portly and imposing at
the start —^nothing was left but the semblance of i

and he was but the type and symbol of

hoop-skirt;
what had happened to all the other dishes.
With the pastries and so on, the heavy drinking
—
began and the talk. Gallon after gallon of wine
and mead disappeared, and everybody got com-
fortable, then happy, then sparklingly joyous ^both —
sexes —^andby and by pretty noisy. Men told
anecdotes that were terrific to hear, but nobody
blushed; and when the nub was spnmg, the assem-
blage let go with a horse-laugh that shook the
fortress. Ladies answered back with historiettes
that would almost have made Queen Margaret of
Navarre or even the great Elizabeth of England hide
behind a handkerchief, but nobody hid here, but only
—
laughed ^howled, you may say. In pretty much all
of these dreadful stories, ecclesiastics were the hardy
heroes, but that didn't worry the chaplain any, he
had his laugh with the rest; more than that, upon
invitation he roared out a song which was of as
daring a sort as any that was sung that night.
By midnight everybody was fagged out, and sore
with laughing; and, as a rule, drunk: some weep-
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A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
ingly, some some hilariously, some
affectionately,
quarrelsomely, some dead and imder the table. Of
the ladies, the worst spectacle was a lovely yotmg
duchess, whose wedding-eve this was; and indeed
she was a spectacle, sure enough. Just as she was
she could have sat in advance for the portrait of
the young daughter of the Regent d'Orleans, at the
famous dinner whence she was carried, fotil-mouthed,
intoxicated, and helpless, to her bed, in the lost and
lamented days of the Ancient Regime.
Suddenly, even while the priest was lifting his
hands, and aU conscious heads were bowed in rever-
ent expectation of the coming blessing, there ap-
peared under the arch of the far-off door at the
bottom of the hall an old and bent and white-haired
lady, leaning upon a crutch-stick; and she lifted the
stick and pointed it toward the queen and cried out
"The wrath and curse of Godupon you,
fall

woman without pity, who have slain mine innocent

grandchild and made desolate this old heart that had
nor chick, nor friend nor stay nor comfort in all this
world but him!"
Everybody crossed himself in a grisly fright, for
a curse was an awful thing to those people; but the
queen rose up majestic, with the death-light in her
eye,and flung back this ruthless command:
"Lay hands on her! To the stake with her!"
The guards left their posts to obey. It was a
shame; it was a cruel thing to see. What could
be done? Sandy gave me a look; I knew she had
another inspiration. I said:
"Do what you choose."
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 — :

MARK TWAIN
She was up and facing toward the queen in a
moment. She indicated me, and said
"Madame, he saith this may not be. Recall the
commandment, or he will dissolve the castle and it
shall vanish away like the instable fabric of a dream!"
Confound it, what a crazy contract to pledge a
person to ! What if the queen
But my consternation subsided there, and my
panic passed off; for the queen, all in a coUapse,
made no show of resistance but gave a coiinter-
manding and sunk into her seat. When she
sign
reached it So were many of the
she was sober.
others. The assemblage rose, whiffed ceremony to
the winds, and rushed for the door like a mob over- ;

turning chairs, smashing crockery, tugging, strug-

gling, shouldering, —
crowding ^anything to get out
before I should change my mind and puff the castle
into the measureless dim vacancies of space. Well,
well, well, they were a superstitious lot. It is all a
body can do to conceive of it.
The poor queen was so scared and humbled that
she was even afraid to hang the composer without
first constdting me. I was very sorry for her—
indeed, any one would have been, for she was really
suffering; so I was willing to do anything that was
reasonable, and had no desire to carry things to
wanton extremities. I therefore considered the
matter thoughtfully, and ended by having the
musicians ordered into our presence to play that
Sweet Bye and Bye again, which they did. Then I
saw that she was right, and gave her permission to
hang the whole band. This little relaxation of
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 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
sternness had a good effect upon the queen. A
statesman gains httle by the arbitrary exercise of
iron-dad authority upon all occasions that offer, for
this wounds the just pride of his subordinates, and
thus tends to \mderniine his strength. A little con-
cession, now and then, where it can do no harm, is

the wiser poHcy.

Now that the queen was at ease in her mind once
more, and measurably happy, her wine naturally
began to assert itself again, and it got a little the
start of her. I mean it set her music going ^her —
silver bell of a tongue. Dear me, she was a master
talker. would not become me to suggest that it
It
was pretty and that I was a tired man and very
late
sleepy. I wished I had gone off to bed when I had
the chance. Now I must stick it out there was no ;

other way. So she tinkled along and along, in the

otherwise profound and ghostly hush of the sleeping
castle, until by and by there came, as if from deep
down under us, a far-away sound, as of a muffled
—
shriek ^with an expression of agony about it that
made my flesh crawl. The queen stopped, and her
eyes lighted with pleasure; she tilted her graceful
head as a bird does when it listens. The sound
bored its way up through the stiUness again.
"What is it?" I said.

"It is truly a stubborn soul, and endureth long.

many hours now."
It is
"Endureth what?"
"The rack. Come —
^ye shall see a blithe sight.
An he yield not his secret now, ye shall see him
torn asunder."
1 4.1
 MARK TWAIN
What a silky smooth hellion she was and so com-
;

posed and serene, when the cords all down my legs

were hurting in sympathy with that man's pain.
Conducted by mailed guards bearing flaring torches,
we tramped along echoing corridors, and down stone
stairways dank and dripping, and smelling of mold
and ages of imprisoned night a chill, uncanny—
journey and a long one, and not made the shorter or
the cheerier by the sorceress's talk, which was about
and his crime.
this sufferer He had been accused
by an anonymous informer, of having killed a stag
in the royal preserves. I said:
"Anonymous testimony isn't just the right thing,
your Highness. It were fairer to confront the
accused with the accuser."
"I had not thought of that, it being but of small
consequence. But an I would, I could not, for that
the accuser came masked by night, and told the
forester, and straightway got him hence again, and
so the forester knoweth him not."
"Then is this Unknown the only person who saw
the stag killed?"
"Marry, no man saw the killing, but this Unknown
saw this hardy wretch near to the spot where the
stag lay, and came with right loyal zeal and be-
trayed him to the forester."
"So the Unknown was near the dead stag, too?
he did the killing himself?
Isn't it just possible that
His loyal zeal — —
a mask ^looks just a shade sus-
^in

picious. But what is your Highness's idea for

racking the prisoner? Where is the profit?"
"He will not confess, else; and then were his soul
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 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
lost. For his crime his Ufe is forfeited by the law
—and of a svtrety will I see that he payeth it ! — ^but
it were peril to my own sotil to let him die loncon-
fessed and unabsolved.Nay, I were a fool to fling
me into hell for his accommodation."
"But, your Highness, suppose he has nothing to
confess?"
"As to that, we An I rack him
shall see, anon.
to death and he confess not, it will peradventure
show that he had indeed naught to confess ^ye will —
grant that that is sooth? Then shall I not be
damned for an unconfessed man that had naught to
confess — be safe."
^wherefore, I shall
It was the stubborn tmreasoning of the time. It
was useless to argue with her. Arguments have no
chance against petrified training; they wear it as
little as the waves wear a cliff. And her training
was everybody's. The brightest intellect in the land
would not have been able to see that her position
was defective.
As we entered the rack-cell I caught a picture that
win not go from me; wish it would. A native
I
young giant of thirty or thereabouts lay stretched
upon the frame on his back, with his wrists and
ankles tied to ropes which led over windlasses at
either end. There was no color in him; his features
were contorted and set, and sweat-drops stood upon
his forehead. A priest bent over him on each side;
the executioner stood by; guards were on duty;
smoking torches stood in sockets along the walls;
in a comer crouched a poor young creature, her face
drawn with anguish, a half-wild and hunted, look in
143
 —
MARK TWAIN
her eyes, and in her lap lay a little child asleep.
Just as we stepped across the threshold the execu-
tioner gave his machine a slight tttm, which wrung a
cry from both the prisoner and the woman; but I
shouted, and the executioner released the strain with-
out waiting to see who spoke. I could not let this
horror go on; it would have killed me to see it. I
asked the queen to let me clear the place and speak
to the prisoner privately; and when she was going
to object I spoke in a low voice and said T did not
want to make a scene before her servants, but I
must have my way; for I was King Arthur's repre-
sentative, and was speaking in his name. She saw
she had to yield. I asked her to indorse me to these
people, and then leave me. It was not pleasant for
her, but she took the pill; and even went further
than I was meaning to reqtiire. I only wanted the
backing of her own authority; but she said:
"Ye will do in all things as this lord shall command.
It is The Boss."
It was certainly a good word to conjure with you :

coidd see it by the squirming of these rats. The

queen's guards fell into Hne, and she and they
marched away, with their torch-bearers, and woke
the echoes of the cavernous tunnels with the meas-
ured beat of their retreating footfalls. I had the
prisoner taken from the rack and placed upon his
bed, and medicaments applied to his hurts, and
wine given him to drink. The woman crept near
and looked on, eagerly, lovingly, but timorously
like one who fears a repulse; indeed, she tried fur-
tively to touch the man's forehead, and jumped
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 : —
A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
back, the pictiire of fright, when I ttimed uncon-
sciously toward her. It was pitiful to see.
"Lord," I said, "stroke him, lass, if you want to.
Do anything you're a mind to; don't mind me."
Why, her eyes were as grateful as an animal's,
when you do it a kindness that it tmderstands. The
baby was out of her way and she had her cheek
against the man's in a minute, and her hands
fondling his hair, and her happy tears running down.
The man revived, and caressed his wife with his eyes,
which was all he could do. I judged I might clear
the den, now, and I did; cleared it of all but the
family and myself. Then I said:
"Now, my friend, tell me your side of this matter,
I know the other side."
The man moved his head in sign of refusal. But
the woman looked pleased —as seemed to
it me
pleased with my suggestion. I went on:
"You know of me?"
"Yes. Ah do, in Arthur's realms."
"If my reputation has come to you right and
straight, you should not beafraid to speak."
The woman broke in, eagerly
"Ah, fair my lord, do thou persuade him! Thou
canst an thou wilt. Ah, he sttffereth so; and it isi
—
for me ^for me! And how can I bear it ? I would I

—
might see him die a sweet, swift death; oh, my
Hugo, I cannot bear this one!"
And she fell to sobbing and groveling about my
feet, and still imploring. Imploring what? The
man's death? I could not quite get the bearings of
the thing. But Hugo interrupted her and said:
145
 " : " "

MARK TWAIN
"Peace! Ye wit not what ye ask. Shall I starve
whom I love, to I wend thou
win a gentle death?
knewest me better."
"Well," I said, "I can't qtdte make this out. It
is a puzzle. Now —
"Ah, dear my lord, an ye will but persuade him!
Consider how these his tortures wound me Oh, and !

—
he will not speak! whereas, the heaUng, the solace
—
that lie in a blessed swift death
"What are you maundering about? He's going
out from here a free man and whole he's not going —
to die."
The man's white face lit up, and the woman flung
herself at me in a most surprising explosion of joy,
and cried out
"He is saved! — ^for it is the king's word by the
mouth of the king's servant ^Arthur, the king whose —
word is gold!"
"Well, then you do believe I can be trusted, after
all. Why didn't you before?"
"Who doubted? Not I, indeed; and not she."
"Well, why wouldn't you tell me your story,
then?"
"Ye had made no promise; else had it been
otherwise."
"I see, I see. . . . And yet I believe I don't
quite see, after all. You stood the torture and
refused to confess which shows plain enough to even
;

the dullest understanding that you had nothing to

confess
—
"I, my lord? How so? It was I that killed the
deer!"
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 " '

A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
"You did? Oh, dear, this the most mixed-up
business that ever — is

"Dear lord, I begged him on my knees to confess,

but—"
You did!
'
' It gets thicker and thicker. What did
you want him to do that for?"
"Sith it would bring him a quick death and save
him all this cruel pain."
—
"Well ^yes, there is reason in that. But he
didn't want the quick death."
" He ? Why, of a surety he did. '

"WeU, then, why in the world didn't he confess?"

"Ah, sweet sir, and leave my wife and chick with-
out bread and shelter?"
"Oh, heart of gold, now I see it! The bitter law
takes the convicted man's estate and beggars his
widow and his orphans. They could torture you to
death, but without conviction or confession they
could not rob your wife and baby. You stood by
—
them like a man; and you true wife and true woman
—
that you are ^you would have bought him release
from torture at cost to yourself of slow starvation
—
and death ^weU, it humbles a body to think what
your sex can do when it comes to self-sacrifice. I'll
book you both for my colony; you'll Hke it there;
it's a Factory where I'm going to turn groping and

grubbing automata into men."

147
 CHAPTER XVIII

IN THE queen's DUNGEONS

WELL,
sent to
arranged
I
home. his
that; and I had the man
all

had a great desire to rack

I
the executioner; not because he was a good, pains-
—
taking and paingiving official ^for siirely it was not
to his discredit that he performed his functions well
— ^but to pay him back for wantonly cuffing and
otherwise distressing young woman. The
that
priests told me about this, and were generously hot
to have him ptmished. Something of this disagree-
able sort was turning up every now and then. I
mean, episodes that showed that not all priests were
frauds and self-seekers, but that many, even the
J
great majority, of these that were down on the
ground among the common people, were sincere
and right-hearted, and devoted to the alleviation of
human troubles and sufferings. Well, it was a thing
which could not be helped, so I seldom fretted about
it, and never many minutes at a time; it has never

been my way to bother much about things which you

can't cure. But
I did not like it, for it was just the
sort of thing tokeep people reconciled to an Estab-
lished Church. We must have a religion ^it goes—
—
without sajdng ^but my idea is, to have it cut up
into forty free sects, so that they will police each
T48
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
other, as had been the case
in the United States in
my time. Concentration of power in a political
machine is bad; and an Established Chtirch is only
a political machine; it was invented for that; it is
nursed, cradled, preserved for that; it is an enemy
,/-
to human liberty, and does no good which it could
not better do in a split-up and scattered condition.
That wasn't law; it wasn't gospel: it was only an
opinion —^my opinion, and I was only a man, one
man : so it wasn't worth any more than the pope's
—or any less, for that matter.
Well, I couldn't rack the executioner, neither
would I overlook the just complaint of the priests.
The man must be punished somehow or other, so I
degraded him from his office and made him leader
of the —the new one that was to be
band started.
He begged hard, and said he couldn't play—a plausi-
ble excuse, but too thin; there wasn't a musician in
the country that could.
The queen was a good deal outraged, next morn-
ing,when she found she was going to have neither
Hugo's life nor his property. But I told her she must
bear this cross; that while by law and custom she
certainly was entitled to both the man's life and his
property, there were extenuating circumstances, and
so in Arthur the king's name
had pardoned him.
I
The deer was ravaging the man's fields, and he had
killed it in sudden passion, and not for gain; and he
had carried it into the royal forest in the hope that
that mightmake detection of the misdoer impossible.
Confound her, I couldn't make her see that sudden
passion is an extenuating circumstance in the killing
149
 —
MARK TWAIN
of venison —or of a person—so I gave up and let
it

her sulk it out. I did think I was going to make her

see it by remarking that her own sudden passion in
the case of the page modified that crime.
"Crime!" she exclaimed, "How thou talkest!
Crime, forsooth! Man, I am going to pay for himi"
Oh, it was no use to waste sense on her. CTraining
— ^training is everything; training is all there is to a
person. We speak of nattire; it is folly; there is no
such thing as nature; what we call by that mislead-
ing name is merely heredity and training. We have
no thoughts of our own, no opinions of our own; they
are transmitted to us, trained into us. All that is
original in us, and therefore fairly creditable or
discreditable to us, can be covered up and hidden by
the point of a cambric needle, all the rest being atoms
contributed by, and inherited from, a procession of
ancestors that stretches back a billion years to the
Adam-clam or grasshopper or monkey from whom
our race has been so tediously and ostentatiously
and unprofitably developedT\ And as for me, all that
I think about in this plodding sad pilgrimage, this
pathetic drift between the eternities, is to look out
and humbly live a pure and high and blameless life,
and save that one microscopic atom in me that is
trtdy me: the rest may land in Sheol and welcome for
all I care.

No, confound her, her intellect was good, she had

brains enough, but her training made her an ass
that from a many-centuries-later point of view.
is,

—
To kill the page was no crime ^it was her right; and
upon her right she stood, serenely and unconscious
ISO
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
of offense. She was a result of generations of train-
ing in the unexamined and unassailed belief that the
law which permitted her to kill a subject when she
chose was a perfectly right and righteous one.
Well, we must give even Satan his due. She
deserved a compliment for one thing; and I tried to
pay it, but the words stuck in my throat. She had a
right to kill the boy, but she was in no wise obliged
to pay for him. That was law for some other people,
but not for her. She knew quite well that she was
doing a large and generous thing to pay for that lad,
and that I ought in common fairness to come out
with something handsome about it, but I couldn't
—^my mouth refused. I couldn't help seeing, in
my fancy, that poor old grandma with the broken
heart, and that young creature lying butchered,
fair
his little silken pomps and vanities laced with his
golden blood. How covld she pay for him! Whom
could she pay? And so, well knowing that this
woman, trained as she had been, deserved praise,
even adulation, I was yet not able to utter it, trained
as I had been. The best I could do was to fish up
a compliment from outside, so to speak and the —
pity of it was, that it was true:
"Madame, your people will adore you for this."
Quite true, but I meant to hang her for it some
day, if I lived. Some of those laws were too bad,
altogether too bad. A master might kill his slave
for nothing: for mere spite, malice, or to pass the

—
time ^just as we have seen that the crowned head
could do it with his slave, that is to say, anybody.
A gentleman could kill a free commoner, and pay for
 —
MARK TWAIN
—
him cash or garden-truck. A noble cotild kill a
noble without expense, as far as the law was con-
cerned, but reprisals in kind were to be expected.
.^»:ybody could kill somehody, except the commoner
and the had no privileges. If they
slave; these
was murder, and the law wouldn't stand
killed, it
murder. It made short work of the experimenter
and of his family, too, if he murdered somebody
who belonged up among the ornamental ranks. If
a commoner gave a noble even so much as a Damiens-
Bcratch which didn't kill or even hurt, he got Da-
miens' dose for it just the same; they puUed him
to rags and tatters with horses, and all the world
came to see the show, and crack jokes, and have a
good time; and some of the performances of the
best people present were as tough, and as properly
unprintable, as any that have been printed by the,
pleasant Casanova in his chapter about the dismem-
berment of Louis XV. 's poor awkward enemy.
I had had enough of this grisly place by this time,
and wanted to leave, but I couldn't, because I had
something on my mind that my conscience kept
prodding me about, and wouldn't let me forget. If
I had the remaking of man, he woiildn'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
1 52
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
noticed my conscience for many years, and I know
it is more trouble and bother to me than anything
else I started with. suppose that in the beginning
I
I prized it, prize anything that is ours;
because we
and yet how foolish it was to think so. If we look
at it in another way, we see how abstird it is: if I
had an anvil in me wotild I prize it ? Of course not.
And yet when you come to think, there is no real

dififerencebetween 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 cotddn'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 morn-
ing. 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
axe expecting the worst, you get something that is
not so bad, after all.
So I braced up and placed my matter before her
153
 MARK TWAIN
royal Highness. I said I had been having a general
jail-delivery Camelot and among neighboring
at
castles, and with her permission I would like to
examine her collection, her bric-^-brac —^that is to

say, her prisoners. She resisted; but I was expect-

ing that. But she finally consented. I was expect-
ing 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 cob-
web of tangled hair, as if to see what casual thing
it might be that was disturbing with sotind and

light the meaningless dtdl 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 appar-
ently; 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 Pit§, 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, be-
lieving the bride's life in danger, and had flung the
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 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
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 bastHe 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, kemeled 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 way, blinking with
listless dull

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 sug-
gestive 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 man-
iSS
 —
MARK TWAIN
acles and fetters attached; but this apparatus lay
idleon 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, —to the bride who was the
and see fairest
thing in the earth to him, once— and
^roses, pearis,

dew made him; a wonder-work, the master-

flesh, for

work of nature: with eyes like no other eyes, and

voice like no other voice, and a freshness, and lithe
yoxing grace, and beauty, that belonged properly to
—
the creatures of dreams as he thought and to no —
other. The sight of her wotold 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 awhile, 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 lora had ambushed him
to assassinate him, but this fellow had got the best
iS6
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
of him and However, it was not for
cut his throat.
that that I left him but for maliciously de-
jailed,
stroying 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 weU; 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 no distinct
for
oflFense 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 cotddn'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
157
 MARK TWAIN
rock he cotild peer out through the arrow-slit and
see his own home oflE 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 cotdd not tell
whether it was wife or child. He could see the pro-
cession 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, un.-
—
speakably precious ^but which one? wife, or child?
That was the question that tortiured 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 htmian curiosity;
that is to say, I was as burning up as he was to find
158
 —
A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
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 yotmg 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 sotil
of the tribe was dead! Conceive of the ingenious
deviHshness of that queen: she had a special hatred
for this prisoner, and she had invented aU those
funerals herself, to scorch his heart with; and the
sublimest stroke of genius of the whole thing was
leaving the family invoice a fvmeral 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 de-
liberate 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 incar-

ceration were no longer known! One woman and
four men —
all and wrinkled, and mind-extin-
bent,
guished 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.
159
 MARK TWAIN
The succession of priests whose oflGce 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 con-
cerned the length of the incarceration only, and not
the names of the offenses. And even by the help
be proven was
of tradition the only thing that could
that none of the fivehad seen daylight for thirty-
five years how much longer this privation had lasted
:

was not guessable. The king and the queen knew

nothing about these poor creattu-es, except that they
were heirlooms, assets inherited, along with the
throne, from the former firm. Nothing of their his-
tory 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 futtu-e prisoners of the Castle d'lf, with-
out 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
J
throw it away, even when we do not value it.
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 !

A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
When Ibrought 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 spec-
tacle 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 never
will
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 ax
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 ax.

i6i
 : "

CHAPTER XIX
KNIGHT-ERRANTRY AS A TRADE

SANDY and I were on the road again, next morn-

ing, bright and early. It was so good to open
up one's Ittngs and take in whole luscious barrelfuls
of the blessed God's untainted, dew-fashioned, wood-
iand-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 conse-
quences. 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."
162
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
"Go ahead, then. I won't interrupt tliis time, if
I can help it. Begin over again start fair, and shake
;

out all your reefs, and I wUl 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
harbor. And on the momthe 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 fottr sons by couples, and two of them brake
their spears, and so did the other two. And aU this
whUe 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 wotdd
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
163
 —
MARK TWAIN
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 Arthirr, and thereupon at Whit-
suntide after, to come he and his sons, and put them
in the king's grace.^
'

' 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 Arthtir'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 dtike 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
J 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 comer 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
'
' The story is borrowed, language and all, from the Morte d'Arthur,
—M. T.
164
 " "

A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
somebody corners the market on you, and down goes
your bucketshop; 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 bed-rock, knight-errantry is
worse than pork; for whatever happens, the pork's
and so somebody's benefited anyway; but when
left,

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 hard-
ware. 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 reputa-
tion in Arthxir's cotut. And speaking of the cow-
boys, 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 ptdlet, to all
i6s
 MARK TWAIN
appearances, and here is this old dtike 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 arotmd in her frosty bloom — How old
are you, Sandy?"
It was the time I ever struck a stiU place in
first

her. The mill had shut down for repairs, or some-

thing.
i56
 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 swear-
ing; yet nevertheless was I glad of his coming, for
that I saw he bore a bulletin-board whereon in
letters aU of shining gold was writ:

"Use Peterson's Prophylactic Tooth-Brush —

All the Go."
I was glad ofhis 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 dis-
tinction was that he had come within an ace of send-
ing Sir Latmcelot down over his horse-tail once. He
was never long in a stranger's presence without find-
ing 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
167
 MARK TWAIN
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 woxild not aUght. 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 Mogtd than Sir Gaheris himself although not
successfully. He was of a light and laughing dis-
position, 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 pred-
ilectionstoward 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 com-
i68
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
fort, 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 com-
pany of travelers who wotild 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 cross-lot 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 remain-

ing snag or remnant of a tooth.
"Blank-blank-blank him," said Sir Madok, "an I
do not stove-polish him an I may find him, leave it
to me; for never no knight that hight Ossaise or
aught else may do me this disservice and bide on
live, an I may find him, the which I have thereunto

sworn a great oath this day."

And with these words and others, he lightly took
his spear and gat him thence. In the middle of the
afternoon we came upon one of those very patriarchs
ourselves, in the edge of a poor village. He was
basking in the love of relatives and friends whom he
had not seen for fifty years; and about him and
caressing him were also descendants of his own body
whom he had never seen at all till now; but to him
these were all strangers, his memory was gone, his
169
 MARK TWAIN
tnind was stagnant. It seemed incredible that a man
covdd outlast half a century shut up in a dark hole
like a rat, but here were his old wife and some old
comrades to testify to it. They could remember him
as he was in the freshness and strength of his young
manhood, when he kissed his child and delivered it
to its mother's hands and went away into that long
oblivion. The people at the castle could not tell
within half a generation the length of time the man
had been shut up there for his unrecorded and for-
gotten offense; but this old wife knew; and so did
her old child, who stood there among her married
sons and daughters trying to realize a father who had
been to her a name, a thought, a formless image, a
tradition, all her Hfe, and now was suddenly concret-
ed into actual flesh and blood and set before her face.
It was a curious situation; yet it is not on that
accotmt that I have made room for it here, but on
account of a thing which seemed to me still more
curious. To wit, that this dreadful matter brought
from these downtrodden people no outburst of rage
against these oppressors. They had been heritors
~0 and subjects of cruelty and outrage so long that
nothing could have startled them but a kindness.
Yes, here was a ctuious revelation, indeed, of the
depth to which this people had been sunk in slavery.
Their entire being was reduced to a monotonous dead
level of patience, resignation, dumb uncomplaining
acceptance of whatever might befall them in this
life. Their very imagination was dead. When you
can say that of a man, he has struck bottom, I reckon;
there is no lower deep for him.
170
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
I rather wished I had gone some otherThis road.
was not the sort of experience for a statesman to
encoimter who was planning out a peaceful revolu-
tion in his mind. For it could not help bringing up
the unget-aroundable fact that, all gentle cant and
philosophizing to the contrary notwithstanding, no
people in the world ever did achieve their freedom by
goody-goody talk and moral suasion: it being im-
mutable law that all revolutions that will succeed
must begin in blood, whatever may answer afterward.
If history teaches anything, it teaches that. What
was a Reign of Terror and a
this folk needed, then,
guillotine, was the wrong man for them.
and I
Two days later, toward lioon, Sandy began to
show signs of excitement and feverish expectancy.
She said we were approaching the ogre's castle. I
was surprised into an uncomfortable shock. The
object of our quest had gradually dropped out of
my mind; this sudden resurrection of it made it
seem quite a real and startling thing for a moment,
and roused up in me a smart interest. Sandy's
excitement increased every moment; and so did
mine, for that sort of thing is catching. My heart
got to thumping. You can't reason with your heart;
ithas its own laws, and thumps about things which
the intellect scorns. Presently, when Sandy slid
from the horse, motioned me to stop, and went
creeping stealthily, with her head bent nearly to her
knees, toward a row of bushes that bordered a de-
the thumpings grew stronger and quicker.
clivity,
And they kept it up while she was gaining her am-
bush and getting her glimpse over the declivity; and
171
 : :

MARK TWAIN
also while I was creeping to her side on my knees.
Her eyes were burning now, as she pointed with her
finger, and said in a panting whisper
"The castle! The castle! Lo, where it looms!"
What a welcome disappointment I experienced!
I said:
'
' Castle ? It is nothing but a pigsty a pigsty with
;

a wattled fence around it."

She looked surprised and distressed. The anima-
tion faded out of her face; and during many moments
she was lost in thought and silent. Then
"It was not enchanted aforetime," she said in a
musing fashion, as if to herself. "And how strange
is this marvel, and how awful
—
^that to the one
perception it is enchanted and dight in a base and
shameful aspect; yet to the perception of the other
it isnot enchanted, hath suffered no change, but
stands firm and stately still, girt with its moat and
waving its banners in the blue air from its towers.
And God shield us, how it pricks the heart to see
again these gracious captives, and the sorrow deep-
ened in their sweet faces! We have tarried along,
and are to blame."
I saw my cue. The castle was enchanted to me,
not to her. It would be wasted time to try to argue
her out of her delusion, it couldn't be done; I must
just humorSo I said:
it.

"This is —
a common case ^the enchanting of a
thing to one eye and leaving it in its proper form to
another. You have heard of it before, Sandy,
though you haven't happened to experience it. But
ap harm is done. In fact, it is lucky the way it
172
 "

A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
is. If these ladies were hogs to everybody and to
themselves, it would be necessary to break the en-

chantment, and that might be impossible if one

failed to find out the particular process of the en-
chantment. And hazardous, too; for in attempting
a disenchantment without the true key, you are
liable to err, and turn your hogs into dogs, and the
dogs into cats, the cats into rats, and so on, and end
by reducing your materials to nothing finally, or to
an odorless gas which you can't follow ^which, oi —
course, amounts to the same thing. But here, by
good luck, no one's eyes but mine are under the
enchantment, and so it is of no consequence to
dissolve it. These ladies remain ladies to you, and
to themselves, and to everybody else; and at the
same time they will suffer in no way from my de-
lusion, for when I know that an ostensible hog is a
lady, that is enough for me, I know how to treat her."
"Thanks, oh, sweet my lord, thou talkest like an
angel. And I know that thou wUt deliver them, for
that thou art minded to great deeds and art as
strong a knight of your hands and as brave to will
and to do, as any that is on live."
"I will not leave a princess in the sty, Sandy. Are
those three yonder that to my disordered eyes are
starveling swineherds
—
"The ogres? Are they changed also? It is most
wonderftd. Now am I fearful; for how canst thou
strike with sure aim when five of their nine cubits
of stature are to thee invisible? Ah, go warily, fair
sir; this is a mightier emprise than I wend."

"You be easy, Sandy. All I need to know is,;

173
 :

MARK TWAIN
how much of an ogre then I know how
is invisible;

to locate his vJtals. Don't you be afraid, I will

make short work of these bunco-steerers. Stay
where you are."
I Sandy kneeUng there, corpse-faced but
left
plucky and hopeful, and rode down to the pigsty,
and struck up a trade with the swineherds. I won
their gratitude by buying out allthe hogs at the
lump sum of sixteen pennies, which was rather
above latest quotations. I was just in time for the ;

Church, the lord of the manor, and the rest of the

tax-gatherers would have been along next day and
swept off pretty much all the stock, leaving the
swineherds very short of hogs and Sandy out of
princesses. But now the tax people could be paid
in cash, and there would be a stake left besides.
One of the men had ten children; and he said that
last year when a priest came and of his ten pigs
took the fattest one for tithes, the wife btust out
upon him, and offered him a child and said
"Thou beast without bowels of mercy, why leave
me my chUd, yet rob me of the wherewithal to
feed it?"
How curious. The same thing had happened in
the Wales of my day, tmder this same old Estab-
lished Church, which was supposed by many to have
changed nature when it changed its disguise.
its

I sent the three men away, and then opened the

sty gate and beckoned Sandy to come —^which she
did; and not leisurely, but with the rush of a prairie
fire. And when I saw her fling herself upon those
hogs, with tears of joy ranning down her cheeks,and
174
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
strainthem to her heart, and kiss them, and caress
them, and call them reverently by grand princely
names, I was ashamed of her, ashamed of the human
race.
We had to drive those hogs home —^ten miles; and
no were ever more fickle-minded or contrary.
ladies
They woidd stay in no road, no path; they broke out
through the brush on all sides, and flowed away in
over rocks, and hiUs, and the roughest
all directions,

places they could find.And they must not be struck,

or roughly accosted; Sandy could not bear to see
them treated ways vmbecoming their rank. The
in
troublesomest old sow of the lot had to be called
my Lady, and yotu: Highness, Kke the rest. It h
annoying and difficult to scour arovmd after hogs, in
armor. There was one small countess, with an iron
ring in her snout and hardly any hair on her back,
that was the devil for perversity. She gave me a
race of an hour, over all sorts of country, and then
we were right where we had started from, having
made not a rod of real progress. I seized her at last
by the tail, and brought her along squealing. When
I overtook Sandy she was horrified, and said it was
in the last degree indelicate to drag a cotmtess by
her train.
We got the hogs home just at dark —^most of

them. The princess Nerovens de Morganore was

missing, and two of her ladies in waiting: namely,
Miss Angela Bohun, and the Demoiselle Elaine
Courtemains, the former of these two being a young
black sow with a white star in her forehead, and the
latter a brown one with thin legs and a slight limp
I7S
 a

MARK TWAIN
in the forward shank on the starboard side —
couple of the tryingest bUsters to drive that I ever
saw. Also among the missing were several mere
baronesses — and I wanted them to stay missing;
but no, that sausage-meat had to be found; so
all

servants were sent out with torches to scour the

woods and hills to that end.
Of course, the whole drove was housed in the
house, and, great gims !
—
well, I never saw anything
like it. Nor ever heard anything Hke it. And never
smelt anything like it. It was like an insurrection in
a gasometer.

176
 '

CHAPTER XXI
THE PILGRIMS

WHEN I did get to bed at last I was unspeak-

ably tired; the stretching-out, and the relax-
ing of the long-tense muscles, how luxurious, how de-
licious but that was as far as I could get
! —sleep was
out of the question for the present. The ripping and
tearingand squealing of the nobility up and down the
hallsand corridors was pandemonium come again,
and kept me broad awake. Being awake, my
thoughts were busy, of course; and mainly they
busied themselves with Sandy's curious delusion.
Here she was, as sane a person as the kingdom could
produce; and yet, from my point of view she was
acting like a crazy woman. My land, the power of
training! of influence! of education! It can bring a
body up to believe anything. I had to put myself
in Sandy's place to realize that she was not a lunatic.
Yes, and put her in mine, to demonstrate how easy
it is to seem a lunatic to a person who has not been

taught as you have been taught. If I had told

Sandy I had seen a wagon, uninfluenced by enchant^
ment, spin along fifty miles an hour; had seen a man,
unequipped with magic powers, get into a basket and
soar out of sight among the clouds; and had listened,
without any necromancer's help, to the conversation
177
 MARK TWAIN
of a person who was several hundred miles away,
Sandy woidd not merely have ^supposed me to be
crazy, she would have thought she knew it. Every-
body arotmd her beHeved in enchantments; nobody
had any doubts; to doubt that a castle could be
turned into a sty, and its occupants into hogs, would
have been the same as my doubting among Con-
necticut people the actuality of the telephone and its

—
wonders and in both cases would be absolute proof
of a diseased mind, an unsettled reason. Yes,
Sandy was sane; that must be admitted. If I also
— —
would be sane to Sandy I must keep my super-
stitions about unenchanted and tmmiraculous loco-
motives, balloons, and telephones, to myself. Also,
I believed that the world was not fiat, and hadn't
piUars under it to support it, nor a canopy over it
to ttim off a universe of water that occupied all

space above; but as I was the only person in the

kingdom afflicted with such impious and criminal
opinions, I recognized that it would be good wisdom
to keep quiet about this matter, too, if I did not
wish to be suddenly shunned and forsaken by
everybody as a madman.
The next fnoming Sandy assembled the swine in
the dining-room and gave them their breakfast,
waiting upon them personally and manifesting in
every way the deep reverence which the natives of
her island, ancient and modem, have always felt
for rank, let its outward casket and the mental and
moral contents be what they may. I could have
eaten with the hogs if I had had birth approaching
my lofty official rank; but I hadn't, and so accepted
178
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
the imavoidable slight and made no complaint
Sandy and I had our breakfast at the second table.
The family were not at home. I said:
"How many are in the family, Sandy, and where
do they keep themselves?"
"Family?"
"Yes."
"Which family, good my lord?"
"Why, this family; your own family."
"Sooth to say, I tmderstand you not. I have no
family."
'
No family ? Why,
' Sandy, isn't this your home ?"
"Now how indeed might that be? I have no
home."
"Well, then, whose house is this?"
"Ah, wit you well I wovild tell you an I knew
myself."
—
"Come ^you don't even know these people?
Then who invited us here?"
"None invited us. We but came; that is all."
"Why, woman, this is a most extraordinary per-
formance. The effrontery of it is beyond admira-
tion. We blandly march into a man's house, and
cram it fullof the only really valuable nobility the
Sim has yet discovered in the earth, and then it
turns out that we don't even know the man's name.
How did you ever venture to take this extravagant
Uberty? I supposed, of course, it was your home.
What win the man say?"
"What wiU he say? Forsooth what can he say
but give thanks?"
"Thanks for what?"
179
 :

MARK TWAIN
Her face was with a puzzled surprise:
filled
"Veiily, thou troublestmine imderstanding with
strange words. Do ye dream that one of his estate
is like to have the honor twice in his life to entertain

company such as we have brought to grace his

house withal?"
—
"Well, no ^when you come to that. No, it's an
even bet that this is the first time he has had a treat
like this."
"Then let him bethankful, and manifest the same
by and due humility he were a dog,
grateful speech ;

else, and the heir and ancestor of dogs."

To my mind, the situation was uncomfortable. It

might become more so. It might be a good idea to
muster the hogs and move on. So I said
"The day is wasting, Sandy. It is time to get the
nobility together and be moving."
"Wherefore, fair sir and Boss?"
"We want to take them to their home, don't we?"
"La, but list to him! They be of all the regions
of the earth ! Each must hie to her own home wend ;

you we might do all these journeys in one so brief

life as He hath appointed that created life, and
thereto death likewise with help of Adam, who by
sin done through persuasion of his helpmeet, she
being wrought upon and bewrayed by the beguile-
ments of the great enemy of man, that serpent hight
Satan, aforetime consecrated and set apart unto that
evil work by overmastering spite and envy begotten
in his heart through fell ambitions that did blight
and mildew a nature erst so white and pure whenso
it hove with the shining multitudes its brethren-bom
i8o
 " " '

A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
in glade and shade of that fair heaven wherein all
such as native be to that rich estate and —
"Great Scott!"
"My lord?"
"Well, you know we haven't got time for this sort
of thing. Don't you see, we could distribute these
people around the earth in less time than it is going
to take you to explain that we can't. We mustn't
talk now, we must act. You want to be careful; you
mustn't let your mill get the start of you that way,
at a time like this. To business now and sharp's —
the word. Who is to take the aristocracy home?"
"Even their friends. These will come for them
from the far parts of the earth."
This was lightning from a clear sky, for unex-
pectedness; and the relief of it was Uke pardon to a
prisoner. She would remain to deliver the goods, of
course.
"Well, then, Sandy, as our enterprise is hand-

somely and successfully ended, I will go home and

report; and if ever another one
—
"I also am ready; I will go with thee."
This was recalling the pardon.
How ? You will go with me ? Why should you ?'
' *

"Will I be traitor to my knight, dost think?

That were dishonor. I may not part from thee until
in knightly encounter in the field some overmatching
champion shall fairly win and fairly wear me. I were
to blame an I thought that that might ever hap."
"Elected for the long term," I sighed to myself.
"I may as well make the best of it." So then I
spoke up and said:
i8i
 MARK TWAIN
"All right; let us make a start."
While she was gone to cry her farewells over the
pork, I gave that whole peerage away to the servants.
And I asked them to take a duster and dust around
a little where the nobilities had mainly lodged and
promenaded; but they considered that that would be
hardly worth while, and would moreover be a rather
grave departtu'e from custom, and therefore likely
to make talk. A departure from custom ^that—
settled it it was a nation capable of committing any
;

crime but that. The servants said they would fol-

low the fashion, a fashion grown sacred through im-
memorial observance; they wotild scatter fresh rushes
in all the rooms and halls, and then the evidence of
the aristocratic visitation would be no longer visible.
It was a kind of satire on Nature it was the scientific
:

method, the geologic method it deposited the history

;

of the family in a stratified record; and the antiquary

could dig through it and tell by the remains of each
period what changes of diet the family had intro-
duced successively for a hundred years.
The first thing we struck that day was a pro-
cession of pilgrims. It was not going our way, but
we joined it, nevertheless; for it was hourly being
borne in upon me now, that if I would govern this
country wisely, I must be posted in the details of its
life, and not at second hand, but by personal observa-

tion and scrutiny.

This company of pilgrims resembled Chaucer's in
this that it had in it a sample of about all the upper
:

occupations and professions the country could show,

and a corresponding variety of costume. There
182
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
were young men and young women and
old men,
old women, lively folk and grave folk. They rode
upon mules and horses, and there was not a side-
saddle in the party; for this specialty was to remain
tinknown in England for nine hundred years yet.
It was a pleasant, friendly, sociable herd; pious,
happy, merry and full of unconscious coarsenesses
and innocent indecencies. What they regarded as
the merry tale went the continual round and caused
no more embarrassment than it would have caused
in the best English society twelve centuries later.
Practical jokes worthy of the English wits of the first
quarter of the far-off nineteenth century were sprung
here and there and yonder along the line, and com-
pelled the delightedest applause; and
sometimes
when a bright remark was made at one end of the
procession and started on its travels toward the
other, you could note its progress all the way by the
sparkling spray of laughter it threw off from its bows
as plowed along; and also by the blushes of the
it

mules in its wake.

Sandy knew the goal and purpose of this pil-
grimage, and she posted me. She said:
"They joiumey to the Valley of Holiness, for to
be blessed of the godly hermits and drink of the
miraculous waters and be cleansed from sin."
"Where is this watering-place?"
"It lieth a two-day journey hence, by the borders
of the land that hight the Cuckoo Kingdom,"
"Tell me about it. Is it a celebrated place?"
"Oh, of a truth, yes. There be none more so.
Of old time there lived there an abbot and his
183
 MARK TWAIN
monks. Belike were none in the world more holy
than these; for they gave themselves to study of
pious books, and spoke not the one to the other, or
indeed to any, and ate decayed herbs and naught
thereto, and slept hard, and prayed much, and
washed never; also they wore the same garment
tmtil it fell from their bodies through age and decay.
Right so came they to be known of all the world
by reason of these holy austerities, and visited by
rich and poor, and reverenced."
"Proceed."
"But always there was lack of water there.
Whereas, upon a time, the holy abbot prayed, and
for answer a great stream of clear water burst forth
by miracle in a desert place. Now were the fickle
monks tempted of the Fiend, and they wrought with
their abbot unceasingly by beggings and beseechings
that he would construct a bath; and when he was
become aweary and might not resist more, he said
have ye your will, then, and granted that they
asked. Now mark thou what 'tis to forsake the
ways of purity the which He loveth, and wanton with
such as be worldly and an offense. These monks
did enter into the bath and come thence washed as
white as snow; and lo, in that moment His sign
appeared, in miraculous rebuke! for His insulted
waters ceased to flow, and utterly vanished away."
"They fared mildly, Sandy, considering how that
kind of crime is regarded in this country."
"Belike; but it was their first sin; and they had
been of perfect life for long, and differing in naught
from the angels. Prayers, tears, torturings of the
184
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
was vain to beguile that water to flow again.
flesh, all
Even processions; even burnt offerings; even votive
candles to the Virgin, did fail every each of them;
and all in the land did marvel."
"How odd to find that even this industry has its
financial panics, and at times sees its assignats and
greenbacks languish to zero, and everything come
to a standstill. Go on, Sandy."
"And so upon a time, after year and day, the
good abbot made humble surrender and destroyed
the bath. And behold, His anger was in that mo-
ment appeased, and the waters gushed richly forth
again, and even tmto this day they have not ceased
to flow in that generous measure."
"Then I take it nobody has washed since."
"He that would essay it could have his halter
free; yes, and swiftly wotild he need it, too."
"The community has prospered since?"
"Even from that very day. The fame of the
miracle went abroad into all lands. From every land
came monks to join; they came even as the fishes
come, in shoals; and the monastery added building
and yet others to these, and so spread
to btiilding,
wide its arms and took them in. And nuns came,
also; and more again, and yet more; and built over
against the monastery on the yon side of the vale,
and added building to building, until mighty was
that nunnery. And these were friendly unto those,
and they joined their loving labors together, and
together they built a fair great foundUng asylum
midway of the valley between."
"You spoke of some hermits, Sandy."
i8.?
 MARK TWAIN
"These have gathered there from the ends of the
earth. A hermit thriveth best where there be
mtdtitudes of pilgrims. Ye shall not find no hermit
of no sort wanting. If any shall mention a hermit
of a kind he thinketh new and not to be found but
in some far strange land, let him but scratch among
the holes and caves and swamps that line that
Valley of Holiness, and whatsoever be his breed, it
skills not, he shall find a sample of it there."
I closed up alongside of a burly fellow with a fat
good-humored face, purposing to make myself
agreeable and pick up some further crumbs of fact;
but I had hardly more than scraped acquaintance
with him when he began eagerly and awkwardly to
lead up, in the immemorial way, to that same old
—
anecdote ^the one Sir Dinadan told me, what time
I got into trouble with Sir Sagramor and was chal-
lenged of him on accotmt of it. I excused myself
and dropped to the rear of the procession, sad at
heart, willing to go hence from this troubled life,
this vale of tears, this brief day of broken rest, or
cloud and storm, of weary struggle and monotonous
defeat; and yet shrinking from the change, as re-
membering how long eternity is, and how many have
wended thither who know that anecdote.
Early in the afternoon we overtook another pro-
cession of pilgrims; but in this one was no merri-
ment, no jokes, no laughter, no pla3^til ways, nor
any happy giddiness, whether of youth or age. Yet
both were here, both age and youth; gray old men
and women, strong men and women of middle age,
young husbands, yotmg wives, little boys and girls,
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 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
and three babies at the breast. Even the children
were smileless there was not a face among all these
;

half a hvindred people but was cast down, and bore

that set expression of hopelessness which is bred of
long and hard trials and old acquaintance with de-
spair. They were slaves. Chains led from their
fettered feet and their manacled hands to a sole-
leather belt about their waists; and all except the
children were also linked together in a file, six feet
apart, by a single chain which led from collar to
collar all down the Une. They were on foot, and
had tramped three hundred miles in eighteen days,
upon the cheapest odds and ends of food, and stingy
rations of that. They had slept in these chains
every night, bimdled together like swine. They had
upon their bodies some poor rags, but they could
not be said to be clothed. Their irons had chafed
the skin from their ankles and made sores which
were ulcerated and wormy. Their naked feet were
torn, and none walked without a limp. Originally
there had been a htmdred of these unfortunates, but
about half had been sold on the trip. The trader in
charge of them rode a horse and carried a whip with
a short handle and a long heavy lash divided into
several knotted tails at the end. With this whip he
cut the shoulders of any that tottered from weari-
ness and pain, and straightened them up. He did
not speak; the whip conveyed his desire without that.
None of these poor creatures looked up as we rode
along by; they showed no consciousness of our
presence. And they made no sound but one; that
was the dull and awful clank of their chains from
187
 —
MARK TWAIN
end to end of the long file, as forty-three burdened
feet roseand fell in unison. The file moved in a
cloud of its own making.
AH these faces were gray with a coating of dust.
One has seen the Hke of this coating upon furniture
in unoccupied houses, and has written his idle
thought in it with his finger. I was reminded of this
when I noticed the faces of some of those women,
young mothers carrying babes that were near to
death and freedom, how a something in their hearts
was written in the dust upon their faces, plain to see,
and lord, how plain to read! for it was the track of
tears. One of these young mothers was but a girl,
and it hurt me to the heart to read that writing, and
reflect that it was come up out of the breast of such
a child, a breast that ought not to know trouble yet,
but only the gladness of the morning of life; and no
doubt
She reeled just then, giddy with fatigue, and down
came the lash and flicked a flake of skin from her
naked shotdder. It stvmg me as if I had been hit
instead. The master halted the file and jumped
from his horse. He stormed and swore at this girl,
and said she had made annoyance enough with her
laziness, and as this was the last chance he should
have, he wotdd settle the accotmt now. She
dropped on her knees and put up her hands and
began to beg, and cry, and implore, in a passion of
terror, but the master gave no attention. He
snatched the child from her, and then made the
men-slaves who were chained before and behind her
throw her on the grotmd and hold her there and
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 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
expose her body; and then he laid on with his lash
like a madman tUl her back was flayed, she shrieking
and struggling the while piteously. One of the men
who was holding her turned away his face, and for
this humanity he was and flogged.
reviled
AU our pilgrims looked on and commented on the—
expert way in which the whip was handled. They
were too much hardened by Ufelong every-day fa-
miliarity with slavery to notice that there was any-
thing else in the exhibition that invited comment.
This was what slavery could do, in the way of
ossifying what one may call the superior lobe of
human feeling; for these pilgrims were kind-hearted
people, and they would not have allowed that man
to treat a horse like that.
I wanted to stop the whole thing and set the slaves
free, but that would not do. I must not interfere
too much and get myself a name for riding over the
country's laws and the citizen's rights rough-shod.
If I lived and prospered I would be the death of
slavery, that I was resolved upon; but I would try
to fix it so that when I became its executioner it
should be by command of the nation.
Just here was the wayside shop of a smith; arid
now arrived a landed proprietor who had bought this
girl a few miles back, deliverable here where hier
irons could be taken off. They were removed; then
there was a squabble between the gentleman and
the dealer as to which shottld pay the blacksmith.
The moment the girl was delivered from her irons,
she flung herself, all tears and frantic sobbings, into
the arms of the slave who had turned away his face
189
 MARK TWAIN
when she was whipped. He strained her to his
breast, and smothered her face and the child's with
kisses, and washed them with the rain of his tears.
I suspected. I inquired. Yes, I was right; it was
husband and wife. They had to be torn apart by
force; the girl had to be dragged away, and she
struggled and fought and shrieked like one gone
mad till a turn of the road hid her from sight; and
even after that, we could still make out the fading
plaint of those receding shrieks. And the husband
and father, with his wife and child gone, never to
—
be seen by him again in life? well, the look of him
one might not bear at all, and so I turned away but ;

I knew I should never get his picture out of my

mind again, and there it is to this day, to wring my
heart-strings whenever I think of it.
We put up at the inn in a village just at nightfall,
and when I rose next morning and looked abroad, I
was ware where a knight came riding in the golden
glory of the new day, and recognized him for knight
of mine — Sir Ozana Cure Hardy. He was in the
le
gentlemen's furnishing line, and his missionarying
specialty was plug-hats. He was clothed all in
steel, in the beautifulest armor of the time ^up to —
where his helmet ought to have been; but he hadn't
any helmet, he wore a shiny stove-pipe hat, and was
as ridiculous a spectacle as one might want to see.
It was another of my surreptitious schemes for
extinguishing knighthood by making it grotesque
and absurd. Sir Ozana's saddle was htmg about with
leather hat-boxes, and every time he overcame a
wandering knight he swore him into my service and
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 " —
A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
fitted him with a plug and made him wear it. I
dressed and ran down to welcome Sir Ozana and
get his news.
"How is
trade?" I asked.
"Ye note that I have but these four left;
will
yet were they sixteen whenas I got me from Cam-
elot."
"Why, you have certainly done nobly, Sir Ozana.
Where have you been foraging of late?"
"I am but now come from the Valley of Holiness,
please you sir."
"I am pointed for that place myself. Is there
anything stirring in the monkery, more than com-
mon?"
"By the mass ye may not question
it! . Give
. .

him good feed, boy, and an thou valuest

stint it not,
thy crown; so get ye lightly to the stable and do even
as I bid. . Sir, it is parlous news I bring, and
. .

be these pilgrims? Then ye may not do better,

good folk, than gather and hear the tale I have to
tell, sith it concemeth you, forasmuch as ye go to

find that ye will not find, and seek that ye will seek
in vain, my life being hostage for my word, and my
word and message being these, namely: That a hap
has happened whereof the like has not been seen no
more but once this two hundred years, which was
the first and last time that that said misfortune
strake the holy valley in that form by commandment
of the Most High whereto by reasons just and causes
thereunto contributing, wherein the matter
—
'
The miraculous fount hath ceased to flow !" Thi?
'

shout burst from twenty pilgrim mouths at once.

191
 MARK TWAIN
"Ye say well, good people. I was verging to it,
even when ye spake."
"Has somebody been washing again?"
"Nay, it is suspected, but none believe it. It
is thought to be some other sin, but none wit

what."
"How are they feeling about the calamity?"
"None may describe it in words. The fount is
these nine days dry. The prayers that did begin then,
and the lamentations in sackcloth and ashes, and the
holy processions, none of these have ceased nor night
nor day; and so the monks and the nims and the
foundlings be all exhausted, and do hang up prayers
writ upon parchment, sith that no strength is left
in man to lift up voice. And at last they sent for
thee. Sir Boss, to try magic and enchantment; and
if you could not come, then was the messenger to

fetch Merlin, and he is there these three days now,

and saith he will fetch that water though he burst
the globe and wreck its kingdoms to accomplish it;
and right bravely doth he work his magic and call
upon his hellions to hie them hither and help, but not
a whiff of moisture hath he started yet, even so much
as might qualify as mist upon a copper mirror an
ye count not the barrel of sweat he sweateth betwixt
sun and sun over the dire labors of his task; and
ify^-"
Breakfast was ready. As soon as it was over I
showed to Sir Ozana these words which I had written
on the inside of his hat: Chemical Department, Labor-
atory extension, Section G. Pxxp. Send two of first
size, two of No. j, and six of No. 4, together with the

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 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
proper complementary details —and two of my trained
assistants." And I said:
"Now get you to Camelot as fast as you can fly,
brave knight, and show the writing to Clarence, and
tell him to have these required matters in the Valley

of Holiness with all possible despatch."

"I will well, Sir Boss," and he was off.

193
 CHAPTER XXII
THE HOLY FOUNTAIN

THE were human

pilgrims
would have acted
beings.
differently.
Otherwise they
They had come a
long and difficult journey, and now when the journey
was nearly finished, and they learned that the main
thing they had come for had ceased to exist, they
didn't do as horses or cats or angle-worms would
—
probably have done ^tum back and get at something
—
profitable ^no, anxious as they had before been to
see the miraculous fountain, they were as much as
forty times as anxious now to see the place where it
had used to be. There is no accounting for human
beings.
We made good time; and a couple of hours before
sunset we stood upon the high confines of the Valley
of Holiness, and our eyes swept it from end to end
and noted its features. That is, its large features.
These were the three masses of buildings. They were
distant and isolated temporalities shrunken to toy
constructions in the lonely waste of what seemed a
—
desert and was. Such a scene is always mournful,
it is so impressively stiU, and looks so steeped in
death. But there was a sound here which interrupted
the stillness only to add to its moumfulness this was
;

the faint far sovind of tolling bells which floated

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 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
fitfully to us on the passing breeze, and so faintly, so
softly, we hardly knew whether we heard it with
that
our ears or with our spirits.
We reached the monastery before dark, and there
the males were given lodging, but the women were
sent over to the ntonnery. The bells were close at
hand now, and their solemn booming smote upon the
ear like a message of doom. A superstitious despair
possessed the heart of every monk and published
itself in his ghastly face. Everywhere, these black-
robed, soft-sandaled, tallow-visaged specters ap-
peared, flitted about and disappeared, noiseless as the
creatures of a troubled dream, and as uncanny.
The me was pathetic. Even
old abbot's joy to see
to tears; but he did the shedding himself He said:.

"Delay not, son, but get to thy saving work. An

we bring not the water back again, and soon, we are
ruined,and the good work of two hundred years must
end. And do it with enchantments that be
see thou
holy, for the Church will not endure that work in her
cause be done by devil's magic."
"When I work. Father, be sure there will be no
devil's work connected with it. I shall use no arts
that come of the devil, and no elements not created
by the hand of God. But is Merlin working strictly
on pious lines?"
"Ah, he said he would, my son, he said he would,
and took oath to make his promise good."
"Well, in that case, let him proceed."
"But you will not sit idle by, but help?"
surely
"It not answer to mix methods, Father;
will
neither would it be professional courtesy. Two of a
195
 MARK TWAIN
trade must not underbid each other. We might as
well cut rates and be done with it; it would arrive
at that in the end. Merlin has the contract; no
other magician can touch it till he throws it up."
"But I will take it from him; it is a terrible emer-
gency and the act is thereby justified. And if it were
not so, who will give law to the Chtu-ch ? The Church
giveth law to all and what she wills to do, that she
;

may do, hurt whom it may. I will take it from him;

you upon the moment."
shall begin
"It not be, Father. No doubt, as you say,
may
where power is supreme, one can do as one likes and
suffer no injury; but we poor magicians are not so
situated. Merlin is a very good magician in a small
way, and has quite a neat provincial reputation. He
is struggling along, doing the best he can, and it
would not be etiquette for me to take his job until he
himself abandons it."
The abbot's face lighted.
"Ah, that is simple. There are ways to persuade
him to abandon it."
"No-no, Father, it skills not, as these people say.
If he were persuaded against his will, he would load
that well with a malicious enchantment which would
balk me tmtil I fovind out its secret. It might take a
month. I could set up a little enchantment of mine
which I call the telephone, and he could not find out
its secret in a hundred years. Yes, you perceive, he
might block me for a month. Would you like to
riska month in a dry time like this?"
"A month! The mere thought of it maketh me
to shudder. Have it thy way, my son. But my
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 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
heart is heavy with Leave me,
this disappointment.
and let me wear my with weariness and wait-
spirit
ing, even as I have done these ten long days, counter-
feiting thus the thing that is called rest, the prone
body making outward sign of repose where inwardly
is none."

Of course, it would have been best, all round, for

Merlin to waive etiquette and quit and call it half a
day, since he would never be able to start that water,
for he was a true magician of the time; which is to
say, the big miracles, the ones that gave him his
reputation, always had the luck to be performed when
nobody but Merlin was present he couldn't start this
;

well with aU this crowd around to see; a crowd was

as bad for a magician's miracle in that day as it was
for a spiritualist's miracle in mine; there was sure
to be some skeptic on hand to turn up the gas at
the crucial moment and spoil everything. But I did
not want Merlin to retire from the job until I was
ready to take hold of it effectively myself; and I
could not do that until I got my things from Camelot,
and that would take two or three days.
My presence gave the monks hope, and cheered
them up a good deal; insomuch that they ate a
square meal that night for thefirst time in ten days.

As soon as stomachs had been properly rein-

their
forced with food, their spirits began to rise fast;
when the mead began to go round they rose faster.
By the time everybody was half -seas over, the holy
community was in good shape to make a night of it;
so we stayed by the board and put it through on
that line. Matters got to be very jolly. Good old
197
 MARK TWAIN
questionable stories were told that made the tears
run down and cavernous mouths stand wide and, the
round beUies shake with laughter; and questionable
songs were bellowed out in a mighty chorus that
drowned the boom of the tolling bells.
At last I ventured a story myself; and vast was
the success of it. Not right off, of course, for the
native of those islands does not, as a rule, dissolve
upon the early applications of a humorous thing;
but thefifth time I told it, they began to crack in
places; the eighth time I told it, they began to
crumble; at the twelfth repetition they fell apart in
chunks and at the fifteenth they disintegrated, and
;

I got a broom and swept them up. This language is

figurative. Those islanders — they are slow pay
^well,

at first, in the matter of return for your investment

of effort, but in the end they make the pay of aU
other nations poor and small by contrast.
I was at the well next day betimes. Merlin was
there, enchanting away Hke a beaver, but not raising
the moisture. He was not in a pleasant humor; and
every time I hinted that perhaps this contract was a
shade too hefty for a novice he unUmbered his
—
tongue and cursed like a bishop ^French bishop of
the Regency days, I mean.
Matters were about as I expected to find them.
The "fountain " was an ordinary well, it had been dug
in the ordinary way, and stoned up in the ordinary
way. There was no miracle about it. Even the lie
that had created its reputation was not miraculous;
I could have told it myself, with one hand tied behind
me. The well was in a dark chamber which stood in
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 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
the center of a cut-stone chapel, whose walls were
hung with pious pictures of a workmanship that
would have made a chromo feel good; pictures his-
torically commemorative of curative miracles which
had been achieved by the waters when nobody was
looking. That is, nobody but angels they are always
;

—
on deck when there is a miracle to the fore so as to
get put in the picture, perhaps. Angels are as fond
company; look at the old masters.
of that as a fire
The well-chamber was dimly Ughted by lamps;
the water was drawn with a windlass and chain by
monks, and poured into troughs which delivered it
into stone reservoirs outside in the chapel —^when
there —
was water to draw, I mean ^and none but
monks could enter the well-chamber. I entered it,
for I had temporary authority to do so, by courtesy
of my professional brother and subordinate. But he
hadn't entered it himself. He did everything by
incantations; he never worked his intellect. If he
had stepped and used his eyes, instead of his
in there /
disordered mind, he could have cured the well by *

natural means, and then turned it into a miracle in

the customary way; but no, he was an old numskull,
a magician who believed in his own magic; and no
magician can thrive who is handicapped with a super-
stition Uke that.
I had an idea that the well had sprung a leak; that
some of the wall stones near the bottom had fallen
and exposed fissures that allowed the water to escape.
I measured the chain —^ninety-eight feet. Then I
called in a couple of monks, locked the door, took a
candle, and made them lower me in the bucket.
199
 :

MARK TWAIN
When the chain was all paid out, the candle con-
firmed my suspicion; a considerable section of the
wall was gone, exposing a good big fissure.

I almost regretted that my theory about the well's

trouble was correct, because I had another one that
had a showy point or two about it for a miracle. I
remembered that in America, many centuries later,
when an oil-well ceased to flow, they used to blast it
out with a dynamite torpedo. If I should find this
well dry and no explanation of it, I could astonish
these people most nobly by having a person of no
especial value drop a dynamite bomb into it. It was
my idea to appoint Merlin. However, it was plain
that there was no occasion for the bomb. One cannot
have everything the way he wotdd like it. A man
has no business to be depressed by a disappointment,
anyway; he ought to make up his mind to get even.
That is what I did. I said to myself, I am in no
hurry, I can wait; that bomb will come good yet.
And it did, too.
When was above ground again, I turned out the
I
monks, and let down a fish-line; the well was a hun-
dred and fifty feet deep, and there was forty-one feet
of water in it I called in a monk and asked
!

"How deep is the well?"

"That, I wit not, having never been told."
sir,

"How does the water usually stand in it?"

'

' Near to the top, these two centuries, as the testi-

mony goeth, brought down to us through oiir prede-
cessors."
It was true —as to recent times at least — ^for there
vras witness to it, and better witness than a monk;
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 "

A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
only about twenty or thirty feet of the chain showed
wear and use, the rest of it was unworn and rusty.
What had happened when the well gave out that
other time? Without doubt some practical person
had come along and mended the leak, and then had
come up and told the abbot he had discovered by
divination that if the sinful bath were destroyed the
well would flow again. The leak had befallen again
now, and these children would have prayed, and pro-
cessioned, and tolled their bells for heavenly succor
till they all dried up and blew away, and no innocent
y
of them all would ever have thought to drop a fish-
line into the well or go down in it and find out what
was really the matter. Old habit of mind is one of
the toughest things to get away from in the world.
It transmits itself like physical form and f eatvu-e and ;

for a man, in those days, to have had an idea that his

ancestors hadn't had, would have brought him xmdei
suspicion of being illegitimate. I said to the monk:
"It isa difficult miracle to restore water in a dry
well, but we wiU try, if my brother Merlin fails.
Brother Merlin is a veiy passable artist, but only in
the parlor-magic line, and he may not succeed; in
fact, is not likely to succeed. But that should be
nothing to his discredit; the man that can do this
kind of miracle knows enough to keep hotel."
"Hotel? I mind not to have heard
—
"Of hotel? It's what you call hostel. The man
that can do this miracle can keep hostel. I can do
this miracle; I shaU do this miracle; yet I do not try
to conceal from you that it is a miracle to tax the
occult powers to the last strain."
20I
 " " :

MARK TWAIN
"None knoweth that truth better than the brother-
hood, indeed; for it is of record that aforetime it was
parlous difficult and took a year. Natheless, God
send you good success, and to that end will we pray."
As a matter of business it was a good idea to get the
notion around that the thing was difficult. Many a
/ small thing has been made large by the right kind of
advertising. That monk was filled up with the diffi-
culty of this enterprise; he would fill up the others.
In two days the soHcitude would be booming.
On my way home at noon, I met Sandy. She had
been sampling the hermits. I said
"I would like to do that myself. This is Wednes-
day. Is there a matinee ?"
"A which, please you, sir?"
"Matin6e. Do they keep open afternoons?"
"Who?"
"The hermits, of course."
"Keep open?"
"Yes, keep open. Isn't that plain enough? Do
they knock off at noon?"
"Knock off?"
"Knock off?—
^yes, knock off. What is the matter
with knock off? I never saw such a dunderhead;
can't you understand anything at all? In plain
terms, do they shut up shop, draw the game, bank
—
the fires
"Shut up shop, draw —
"There, never mind, let it go; you make me tired.
You can't seem to understand the simplest thing."
"I would I might please thee, sir, and it is to me
dole and sorrow that I fail, albeit sith I am but a sim-
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 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
pie damsel and taught of none, being from the cradle
unbaptized in those deep waters of learning that do
anoint with a sovereignty him that partaketh of that
most noble sacrament, investing him with reverend
state to the mental eye of the humble mortal, who by
bar and lack of that great consecration seeth in his
own unlearned estate but a symbol of that other sort
of lack and loss which men do publish to the pitying
eye with sackcloth trappings whereon the ashes of
grief do lie bepowdered and bestrewn, and so, when
such shall in the darkness of his mind encounter these
golden phrases of high mystery, these shut-up-shops,
and draw-the-game, and bank-the-fires, it is but by
the grace of God that he burst not for envy of the
mind that can beget, and tongue that can deliver so
great and mellow-sounding miracles of speech, and
if there do ensue confusion in that humbler mind,
and failure to divine the meanings of these wonders,
then if so be this miscomprehension is not vain but
sooth and true, wit ye well it is the very substance
of worshipful dear homage and may not lightly be
misprized, nor had been, an ye had noted this com-
plexion of mood and mind and understood that that
I would I could not, and that I could not I might not,
nor yet nor might nor could, nor might-not nor could-
not. might be by advantage ttuned to the desired
would, and so I pray you mercy of my fault, and that
ye will of your kindness and your charity forgive it,
good my master and most dear lord."
I couldn't make it aU out — —
^that is, the details but
I got the general idea; and enough of it, too, to be
ashamed. It was not fair to spring those nineteenth-
ao3
 MARK TWAIN
century technicalities upon the untutored infant of
the sixth and then rail at her because she couldn't
get their drift and when she was making the honest
;

best drive at it she could, too, and no fault of hers

that she couldn't fetch the home plate; and so I
apologized. Then we meandered pleasantly away
toward the hermit holes in sociable converse together,
and better friends than ever.
I was gradually coming to have a mysterious and
shuddery reverence for this girl; nowadays whenever
she pulled out from the station and got her train
fairly started on one of those horizonless transconti-
nental sentences of hers, it was borne in upon me that
I was standing in the awful presence of the Mother
of the German Language. I was so impressed with
this, that sometimes when she began to empty one of
these sentences on me I unconsciously took the very
attitude of reverence, and stood uncovered; and if
words had been water, I had been drowned, sure.
She had exactly the German way; whatever was in
her mind to be delivered, whether a mere remark, or
a sermon, or a cyclopedia, or the history of a war, she
would get it into a single sentence or die. Whenever
the literary German dives into a sentence, that is the
last you are going to see of him till he emerges on the
other side of his Atlantic with his verb in his mouth.
We drifted from hermit to hermit all the afternoon.
It was a most strange menagerie. The chief emula-
tion among them seemed to be, to see which could
manage to be the uncleanest and most prosperous
with vermin. Their manner and attitudes were the
last expression of complacent self-righteousness. It
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A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
was one anchorite's pride to lie naked in the mud and
let the insects bite him and bUster him unmolested;
it was another's to lean against a rock, all day long,

conspicuous to the admiration of the throng of pil-

grims and pray; it was another's to go naked and
crawl around on all fours; it was another's to drag
about with him, year in and year out, eighty pounds
of iron; it was another's to never lie down when he
slept, but to stand among the thorn-bushes and snore
when there were pilgrims around to look; a woman,
who had the white hair of age, and no other apparel,
was black from crown to heel with forty-seven years
of holy abstinence from water. Groups of gazing pil-
grims stood around all and every of these strange
objects, lost in reverent wonder, and envious of the
fleckless sanctity which these pious austerities had
won for them from an exacting heaven.
By and by we went to see one of the supremely
great ones. He was a mighty celebrity his fame had
;

penetrated all Christendom; the noble and the re-

nowned journeyed from the remotest lands on the
globe to pay him reverence. His stand was in the
center of the widest part of the valley ;and it took aH
that space to hold his crowds.
His stand was a pillar sixty feet high, with a broad
platform on the top of it. He was now doing what he
had been doing every day for twenty years up there
bowing his body ceaselessly and rapidly almost to
his feet. It was his way of praying. I timed him with
a stop-watch, and he made twelve hundred and forty-
fotu- revolutions in twenty-four minutes and forty-
six seconds. It seemed a pity to have all this power
205
 MARK TWAIN
going to waste. It was one of the most useful mo-
tions in mechanics, the pedal movement; so I made
a note in my memorandum-book, purposing some day
to apply a system of elastic cords to him and run a
sewing-machine with it. I afterward carried out that
scheme, and got five years' good service out of him;
in which time he turned out upward of eighteen thou-
sand first-rate tow-linen shirts, which was ten a day.
I worked him Sundays and all; he was going, Sun-
/ days, the same as week-days, and it was no use to
waste the power. These shirts cost me nothing but
just the mere trifle for the materials — I furnished
those myself, would not have been right to make
it

—
him do that and they sold like smoke to pilgrims
at a dollar and a half apiece, which was the price of
fifty cows or a blooded race-horse in Arthurdom.

They were regarded as a perfect protection against

sin, and advertised as such by my knights every-
where, with the paint-pot and stencil-plate; insomuch
that there was not a cliff or a boulder or a dead waU in
England but you could read on it at a mile distance:
'
' Buy the only genuine St. Stylite; patronized by the
Nobility. Patent applied for."
There was more money in the business than one
knew what to do with. As it extended, I brought out
a line of goods suitable for kings, and a nobby thing
for duchesses and that sort, with ruffles down the fore-
hatch and the running-gear clewed up with a feather-
stitch to leeward and then hauled aft with a back-
stay and triced up with a half-turn in the standing
rigging forward of the weather-gaskets. Yes, it was
a daisy.
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A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
But about that time I noticed that the motive
power had taken to standing on one leg, and I found
that there was something the matter with the other
one; so I stocked the business and tmloaded, taking
Sir Bors de Ganis into camp financially along with
certain of his friends; for the works stopped within
y
a year, and the good saint got him to his rest. But
he had earned it. I can say that for him.
—
When I saw him that first time ^however, his per-
sonal condition will not quite bear description here.
You can read it in the Lives of the Saints}

' All the details concerning the hermits, in this chapter, are from
Lecky — ^but greatly modified. This book not being a history but
only a tale, the majority of the historian's frank details were too
strong for reproduction in it. Editor.

207
 :

CHAPTER XXIII
RESTORATION OF THE FOUNTAIN

SATURDAY noon I went to the well and looked

on awhile. Merlin was still burning smoke-
powders, and pawing the air, and muttering gibberish
as hard as ever, but looking pretty downhearted, for
of course he had not started even a perspiration in
that well yet. Finally I said
"How does the thing promise by this time,
partner?"
"Behold, I am even now busied with trial of the
powerfulest enchantment known to the princes of
the occult arts in the lands of the East; an it fail

me, naught can avail. Peace, tmtil I finish."

He raised a smoke this time that darkened all the
region, and must have made matters imcomfortable
for the hermits, for the wind was their way, and it
rolled down over their dens in a dense and billowy
fog. He poured out volumes of speech to match, and
contorted his body and sawed the air with his hands
in a most extraordinary way. At the end of twenty
minutes he dropped down panting, and about ex-
hausted. Now arrived the abbot and several hundred
monks and nuns, and behind them a multitude of pil-
grims and a couple of acres of foundlings, all drawn
by the prodigious smoke, and all in a grand state of
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 "

A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
excitement. The abbot inquired anxiously for re-
sults. Merlin said:
"If any labor of mortal might break the spell that
binds these waters, this which I have but just essayed
had done it. It has failed; whereby I do now know
that that which I had feared is a truth established;
the sign of this failure is, that the most potent spirit
known to the magicians of the East, and whose name
none may utter and Hve, has laid his spell upon this
well. The mortal does not breathe, nor ever will,
who can penetrate the secret of that spell, and with-
out that secret none can break it. The water will
flow no more forever, good Father. I have done
what man could. Suffer me to go."
Of course this threw the abbot into a good deal of
a consternation. He turned to me with the signs
of it in his face, and said:
"Ye have heard him. Is it true?"
"Part of it is."
"Not all, then, not all! What part is true?"
"That that spirit with the Russian name has put
upon the well."
his speU
"God's wownds, then are we ruined!"
"Possibly."
"But not certainly? Ye mean, not certainly?"
"That is it."
"Wherefore, ye also mean that when he saith none
can break the speU
—
"Yes, when he says that, he says what isn't neces-
sarily true. There are conditions tmder which an
effort to break it may have some chance that is, —
some small, some trifling chance of success," —
209
 MARK TWAIN
"The conditions—"
"Oh, they are nothing difficult. Only these: I
want the well and the surrotindings for the space of
half a mile, entirely to myself from sunset to-day until
—
I remove the ban ^and nobody allowed to cross the
ground but by my authority."
"Are these all?"
"Yes."
"And you have no fear to try?"
"Oh, none. One may fail, of course; and one
may also succeed. One can try, and I am ready to
chance it. I have my conditions?"
"These and all others ye may name. I will issue
commandment to that effect."
"Wait," said Merlin, with an evil smile. "Ye
wit that he that would break this spell must know
that spirit's name?"
"Yes, I know his name."
"And wit you also that to know it skills not of
itself, but ye must likewise pronoimce it? Ha-ha!
Knew ye that?"
"Yes, I knew that, too."
"You had Art a fool? Are ye
that knowledge!
minded to utter that name and die?"
"Utter it? Why certainly. I would utter it if it
was Welsh."
"Ye are even a dead man, then; and I go to tell
Arthur."
"That's Take your gripsack and get
all right.
along. The thing do is to go home and
for you to
work the weather, John W. Merlin."
It was a home shot, and it made him wince; for
2IO
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
he was the worst weather failure in the kingdom.
Whenever he ordered up the danger-signals along the
coast there was a week's dead calm, sure, and every
time he prophesied fair weather it rained brickbats.
But I kept him in the weather bureau right along, to
undermine his reputation. However, that shot raised
his bile, and instead of starting home to report my
death, he said he would remain and enjoy it.
My two experts arrived in the evening, and pretty
well fagged, for they had traveled double tides. They
had pack-mules along, and had brought everything I
—
needed ^tools, pump, lead pipe, Greek fire, sheaves
of big rockets, roman candles, colored fire sprays,
electric apparatus, —
and a lot of simdries everything
necessary for the stateliest kind of a miracle. They
got their supper and a nap, and about midnight we
sallied out through a solitude so wholly vacant and
complete that it qtiite overpassed the required condi-
tions. We took possession of the well and its sur-
roundings. My boys were experts in all sorts of
things, from the stoning-up of a well to the con-
structing of a mathematical instrument. An horn-
before sunrise we had that leak mended in shipshape
fashion,and the water began to rise. Then we
stowed our fireworks in the chapel, locked up the
place, and went home to bed.
Before the noon mass was over, we were at the
well again for there was a deal to do yet, and I was
;

determined to spring the miracle before midnight, for

business reasons: for whereas a miracle worked for
the Chtu-ch on a week-day is worth a good deal, it
is worth six times as much if you get it in on a Sun-
211
 MARK TWAIN
day. In nine hours the water had risen to its custo-
mary level; that is to say, it was within twenty-three
feet of the top. We put in a little iron pump, one of
the first tiimed out by my works near the capital;
we bored into a stone reservoir which stood against
the outer wall of the well-chamber and inserted a
section of lead pipe thatwas long enough to reach to
the door of the chapel and project beyond the thresh-
old, where the gushing water would be visible to the
two hundred and fifty acres of people I was intending
should be present on the flat plain in front of this
holy hillock at the proper time.
little

We knocked the head out of an empty hogshead

and hoisted this hogshead to the fiat roof of the
chapel, where we clamped it down fast, poured in
gunpowder till it lay loosely an inch deep on the bot-
tom, then we stood up rockets in the hogshead as
thick as they could loosely stand, all the different
breeds of rockets there are; and they made a portly
and imposing sheaf, I can tell you. We grounded the
tvire of a pocket electrical battery in that powder, we

placed a whole magazine of Greek fire on each comer

—
of the roof ^blue on one comer, green on another, red
—
on another, and purple on the last and grounded a
wire in each.
About two hundred yards off, in the flat, we built
a pen of scantlings, about four feet high, and laid
planks on it, and so made a platform. We covered
it with swell tapestries borrowed for the occasion,

and topped it off with the abbot's own throne. When

you are going to do a miracle for an ignorant race,
you want to get in every detail that will cotmt; you
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
want to make all the properties impressive to the
public eye; you want to make matters comfortable
for your head guest; then you can turn yourself
loose and play your effects for all they are worth.
I know the value of these things, for I know hviman
nature. You can't throw too much style into a mir-
acle. It costs trouble, and work, and sometimes
money; but it pays in the end. Well, we brought
the wires to the ground at the chapel, and then
brought them under the ground to the platform, and
hid the batteries there. We put a rope fence a hun-
dred feet square around the platform to keep off
the common multitude, and that finished the work.
My idea was, doors open at ten-thirty, performance
to begin at eleven-twenty-five sharp. I wished I
could charge admission, but of course that wouldn't
answer. I instructed my boys to be in the chapel as
early as ten, before anybody was arotmd, and be
ready to man the pumps at the proper time, and make
the fur fly. Then we went home to supper.
The news of the disaster to the well had traveled
far by this time; and now for two or three days a
steady avalanche of people had been pouring into the
vaUey. The lower end of the vaUey was become one
huge camp; we should have a good house, no ques-
tion about that. Criers went the rounds early in the
evening and announced the coming attempt, which
put every pulse up to fever-heat. They gave notice
that the abbot and his official suite would move in
state and occupy the platform at ten-thirty, up to
which time all the region which was tmder my ban
must be dear; the bells would then cease from toll-
a 13
 MARK TWAIN
ing,and this sign should be permission to the multi-
tudes to close in and take their places.
I was at the platform and all ready to do the hon-
ors when the abbot's solemn procession hove in
sight —which it did not do till it was nearly to the
rope fence, because was a starless black night and
it

no torches permitted. With it came MerHn, and took

a front seat on the platform; he was as good as his
word for once. One could not see the multitudes
banked together beyond the ban, but they were there,
just the same. The moment the bells stopped, those
banked masses broke and poured over the line like a
vast black wave, and for as much as a half-hour it
continued to flow, and then it solidified itself, and
you could have walked upon a pavement of human
heads to — well, nules.
We had a solemn stage-wait, now, for about
—
twenty minutes a thing I had counted on for effect;
it is always good to let your audience have a chance

to work up its expectancy. At length, out of the

silence a noble Latin chant — —
omen's voices ^broke and
swelled up and rolled away into the night, a majestic
tide of melody. I had put that up, too, and it was
one of the best effects I ever invented. When it was
finished I stood up on the platform and extended my
hands abroad, for two minutes, with my face up-
lifted —that always produces a dead hush and then —
slowly pronounced this ghastly word with a kind of
awfulness which caused hundreds to tremble, and
many women to faint:

"eonttantinopolitanUcberdudchackspfeifenmacbersgesclUcbafft!"

214
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
Just as I was moaning out the closing hunks of that
word, I touched oE one of my electric connections,
and all that murky worid of people stood revealed in a
hideous blue glare! It was immense ^that effect! —
Lots of people shrieked, women curled up and quit
in every direction, foundlings collapsed by platoons.
The abbot and the monks crossed themselves nimbly
and their lips fluttered with agitated prayers. Merlin
held his grip, but he was astonished clear down to
his corns; he had never seen anything to begin with
that, before. Now was the time to pile in the effects.
I lifted my hands and groaned out this word as it —
were in agony:

"nibni$tendyiiaitimbeaterRae$tcl)en$$prciiauii9$<imntait$'
versucbuiidcit!"

— turned on the red fire You should have heard

^and !

that Atlantic of people moan and howl when that

crimson hell joined the blue! After sixty seconds I
shouted:

''Cransviialtrappemropemranspoiitraitipeltbier-
trcibertrattung$tl)riiciicntr<i9oeaie!"

—and lit up the green fire! After waiting only forty

seconds this time, I spread my arms abroad and
thundered out the devastating syllables of ^his word
of words:

''
meftkamuseltnannenmassenmencb^
enmoeraermobrenmuttertitannortnonu"
ttiemenmacber!'*
215
 MARK TWAIN
—and whirled on the pvirple glare ! There they were,
all going at once, red, blue, green, purple! — ^four

furious volcanoes pouring vast clouds of radiant

smoke aloft, and spreading a blinding rainbowed
noonday to the furthest confines of that valley. In
the distance one could see that fellow on the pillar
standing rigid against the background of sky, his see-
saw stopped for the first time in twenty years. I
knew the boys were at the pump now and ready. So
I said to the abbot:
"The time is come, Father. I am about to pro-
nounce the dread name and command the spell to dis-
solve. You want to brace up, and take hold of some-
thing." Then I shouted to the people: "Behold, in
another minute the spell will be broken, or no mortal
can break it. If it break, all will know it, tor you will
see the sacred water gush from the chapel door!"
I stood a few moments, to let the hearers have a
chance to spread my annoimcement to those who
couldn't hear, and so convey it to the furthest ranks,
then I made a grand exhibition of extra posturing
and gesturing, and shouted:
"Lo, I command the fell spirit that possesses the
holy foimtain to now disgorge into the skies all the
infernal fires that stiUremain in him, and straightway
dissolve his spell and flee hence to the pit, there to lie
bound a thousand years. By his own dread name I
command it—BGWJJILLIGKKK!"
Then I touched off the hogshead of rockets, and a
vast fountain of dazzling lances of fire vomited itself

toward the zenith with a hissing rush, and burst in

mid-sky into a storm of flashing jewels One mighty
!

216
 —
A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
groan of terror started up from the massed people
then suddenly broke into a wild hosannah of joy
for there, fair and plain in the uncanny glare, they
saw the freed water leaping forth! The old abbot
could not speak a word, for tears and the choldngs in
his throat; without utterance of any sort, he folded
me in his arms and mashed me. It was more elo-
quent than speech. And harder to get over, too, in
a country where there were really no doctors that
were worth a damaged nickel.
You should have seen those acres of people throw
themselves down in that water and kiss it; kiss it,
and pet it, and fondle it, and talk to it as if it were
alive, and welcome it back with the dear names they
gave their darlings, just as if it had been a friend
who was long gone away and lost, and was come
home again. Yes, was pretty to see, and made me
it

think more of them than I had done before.

I sent Merlin home on a shutter. He had caved
in and gone down like a landslide when I pronounced
that fearftil name, and had never come to since. He
—
never had heard that name before ^neither had I
but to him it was the right one. Any jumble would
have been the right one. He admitted, afterward,
that that spirit's own mother could not have pro-
nounced that name better than I did. He never
could tmderstand how I survived it, and I didn't
tell him. It is only young magicians that give away
a secret like that. Merlin spent three months work-
ing enchantments to try to find out the deep trick of
how to pronounce that name and outlive it. But he
didn't arrive.
217
 MARK TWAIN
When I started to the chapel, the populace uncov-
firedand feU back reverently to make a wide way
for me, as if I had been some kind of a superior
—
being and I was. I was aware of that. I took
along a night shift of monks, and taught them the
mystery of the pump, and set them to work, for it
was plain that a good part of the people out there
were going to sit up with the water all night, conse-
quently it was but right that they should have all
they wanted of it. To those monks that pump was a
good deal of a miracle itself, and they were full of
wonder over it and of admiration, too, of the exceed-
;

ing effectiveness of its performance.

It was a great night, an immense night. There
was reputation in it. I could hardly get to sleep for
glorying over it.

si8
 :

CHAPTER XXIV
A RIVAL MAGICIAN

MY .
influence in the Valley of Holiness
thing prodigious now. It
was some-
seemed worth while
to try to ttun it to some valuable account. The
thought came to me the next morning, and was sug-
gested by my seeing one of my knights who was in
the soap line come riding in. According to history,
the monks of this place two centuries before had been
worldly-minded enough to want to wash. It might
be that there was a leaven of this tmrighteousness
still remaining. So I sounded a Brother:
"Wouldn't you like a bath?"
He —
shuddered at the thought ^the thought of the
peril of it to the well —
^but he said with feeling
"One needs not to ask that of a poor body who has
not known that blessed refreshment sith that he was
a boy. Would God I might wash me! but it may
not be, fair sir, tempt me not; it is forbidden."
And then he sighed in such a sorrowful way that I
was resolved he should have at least one layer of his
real estate removed, if it sized up my whole influence
and bankrupted the pUe. So I went to the abbot and
asked for a permit for this Brother. He blenched at
—
the idea I don't mean that you could see him blench,
for of coiu'se you couldn't see it without you scraped
319
 : —
MARK TWAIN
him, and I didn't care enough about it to scrape
him, but I knew the blench was there, just the same,
and within a book-cover's thickness of the svtrface,
—
too ^blenched, and trembled. He said
"Ah, son, ask aught else thou wilt, and it is thine,
and freely granted out of a gratefid heart but this, —
oh, this! Would you drive away the blessed water
again?"
"No, Father, I will not drive it away. I have
mysterious knowledge which teaches me that there
was an error that other time when it was thought
the institution of the bath banished the fountain."
A began to show up in the old man's
large interest
face. My knowledge informs me that the bath was
'
'

innocent of that misfortune, which was caused by

quite another sort of sin."
"These are brave words — — ^but ^but right welcome,
if they be true."
"They are true, indeed. Let me build the bath
again. Father. Let me bmld it again, and the foun-
tain shall flow forever."
"Youpromise this? —^you promise it? Say the
—
word say you promise it!"
"I do promise it."
"Then have the first bath myself! Go
will I
get ye to your work. Tarry not, tarry not, but go."
I and my boys were at work, straight off. The
ruins of the old bath were there yet in the basement
of the monastery, not a stone missing. They had
been left just so, all these lifetimes, and avoided with
a pious fear, as things accursed. In two days we
had it aU done and the water in a spacious pool of—
220
 !

A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
clear pure water that a body could swim in. It was
miming water, came in, and went out, through
too. It
the ancient pipes. The old abbot kept his word,
and was the first to try it. He went down black and
shaky, leaving the whole black community above
troubled and worried and full of bodings; but he
came back white and joyful, and the game was made
another triumph scored.
It was a good campaign that we made in that
Valley of Holiness, and I was very well satisfied, and
ready to move on now, but I struck a disappointment.
I caught a heavy cold, and it started up an old lurk-
ing rheumatism of mine. Of course the rheumatism
hunted up my weakest place and located itself there.
This was the place where the abbot put his arms
about me and mashed me, what time he was moved
to testify his gratitude to me with an embrace.
When at last I got out, I was a shadow. But every-
body was full of attentions and kindnesses, and these
brought cheer back into my life, and were the right
medicine to help a convalescent swiftly up toward
health and strength again; so I gained fast.
Sandy was worn out with nursing, so I made up
my mind to turn out and go a cruise alone, leaving
her at the nunnery to rest up. My idea was to dis-
guise myself as a freeman of peasant degree and
wander through the country a week or two on foot.
This would give me a chance to eat and lodge with
the lowhest and poorest class of free citizens on equal
terms. There was no other way to inform myself
perfectly of their every-day life and the operation of
the laws upon it. If I went among them as a gentle-
221
 MARK TWAIN
vinan, there would be restraints and conventionalities
which would shut me out from their private joys and
troubles, and I should get no further than the outside
shell.
One morning I was out on a long walk to get up
muscle for my trip, and had cUmbed the ridge which
bordered the northern extremity of the valley, when
I came upon an artificial opening in the face of a low
precipice,and recognized it by its location as a
hermitage which had often been pointed out to me
from a distance as the den of a hermit of high renown
for dirt and austerity. I knew he had lately been
offered a situation in the Great Sahara, where lions
,
and sandflies made the hermit life peculiarly attrac-
tive and difficult, and had gone to Africa to take
possession, so I thought I would look in and see how
the atmosphere of this den agreed with its reputa-
tion.
My surprise was great the place was newly swept
:

and scoured. Then there was another surprise. Back

in the gloom of the cavern I heard the cHnk of a
little bell, and then this exclamation:

—
"Hello, Central! Is this you, Camelot? Behold,
thou mayst glad thy heart an thou hast faith to
believe the wonderful when that it cometh in unex-
pected guise and maketh itself manifest in impossible
places —
^here standeth in the flesh his mightiness
The Boss, and with thine own ears shall ye hear
him speak!"
Now what a radical reversal of things this was;
what a jumbling together of extravagant incongrui-
ties; what a fantastic conjunction of opposites and
222
 !

A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
irreconcilables —the home bogus miracle be-
of the
come the home of a real one, the den of a medieval
hermit turned mto a telephone office
The telephone clerk stepped into the light, and I
recognized one of my young fellows. I said:
"How long has this office been established here.
Ulfius?"
"But since midnight, fair Sir Boss, an it please you.
We saw many lights in the valley, and so judged it
well to make a station, for that where so many lights
be needs must they indicate a town of goodly size."
"Quite right. It isn't a town in the customary
sense, but it's a good stand, anyway. Do you know
where you are?"
"Of that I have had no time to make inquiry; for
when as my comradeship moved hence upon their
labors, leaving me in charge, me to needed rest,
I got
purposing to inquire when I waked, and report the
place's name to Camelot for record."
"Well, this is the Valley of Holiness."
It didn't take; I mean, he didn't start at the name,
as I had supposed he would. He merely said:
"I will so report it."
"Why, the surrounding regions are filled with the
noise of late wonders that have happened here ! You
didn't hear of them?"
"Ah, ye will remember we move by night, and
avoid speech with all. We learn naught but that we
get by the telephone from Camelot."
"Why they know all about this thing. Haven't
they told you anything about the great miracle of
the restoration of a holy fountain?"
223
 "
:

MARK TWAIN
"Oh, that? Indeed yes. But the name of this
valley doth woundily differ from the name of that one;
indeed to wider were not pos
differ
—
"What was that name, then?"
"The Valley of Hellishness."
'
That explains it. Confound a telephone, anyway.
'

It is the very demon for conveying similarities of

sound that are miracles of divergence from similarity
of sense. But no matter, you know the name of the
place now. Call up Camelot."
He did it, and had Clarence sent for. It was good
to hear my boy's voice again. It was like being
home. After some affectionate interchanges, and
some account of my late illness, I said
"What is new?"
"The king and queen and many of the court do
start even in this hour, to go to your valley to pay
pious homage to the waters ye have restored, and
cleanse themselves of sin, and see the place where the
infernal spirit spouted true hell-flames to the clouds
— an ye listen sharply ye may hear me wink and hear
me likewise smile a srmle, sith 'twas I that made se-

lection of those flames from out our stock and sent

them by your order."
"Does the king know the way to this place?"
—
"The king? no,, nor to any other in his realms,
mayhap but the lads that help you with your mira-
;

cle will be his guide and lead the way, and appoint
the places for rests at noon and sleeps at night."
"This will bring them here ^when ?" —
"Mid-aftemoon, or later, the third day."
"Anything else in the way of news?"
324
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A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
"The king hath begun the raising of the standing
army ye suggested to him; one regiment is complete
and officered."
The mischiefI wanted a main hand in that my-
!

self. There
only one body of men in the kingdom
is

that are fitted to officer a regular army."

"Yes —
and now ye will marvel to know there's not
so much as one West-Pointer in that regiment."
"What are you talking about? Are you in
earnest?"
"It is trtily as I have said."
"Why, makes me uneasy. Who were chosen,
this
and what was the method? Competitive examina-
tion?"
"Indeed, I know naught of the method. I but
know — this ^these officers be all of noble family, and
—
are bom ^what is it you call it? —chuckle-heads."
"There's something wrong, Clarence."
"Comfort yourself, then; for two candidates for a
lieutenancy do travel hence with the king ^young —
—
nobles both and if you but wait where you are you
wiU hear them questioned."
"That is news to the purpose. I will get one West-
Pointer in, anyway. Mount a man and send him to
that school with a message; let him kUl horses, if
necessary, but he must be there before sunset to-
night and say
—
"There is no need. I have laid a ground- wire to
the school. Prithee let me connect you with it."
It sounded good! In this atmosphere of tele-
phones and lightning communication with distant
regions, I was breathing the breath of life again after
22S
 MARK TWAIN
long suffocation. I realized, then, what a creepy,
dull, inanimate horror this land had been to me all
these years, and how I had been in such a stifled
mind as to have grown used to
condition of it almost
beyond the power to notice it.
I gave my order to the superintendent of the Acad-
emy personally. I also asked him to bring me some
paper and a fountain-pen and a box or so of safety
matches. I was getting tired of doing without these
conveniences. I could have them now, as I wasn't
going to wear armor any more at present, and there-
fore could get at my pockets.
When I got back to the monastery, I found a thing
of interest going on. The abbot and his monks were
assembled in the great hall, observing with childish
wonder and faith the performances of a new magician,
a fresh arrival. His dress was the extreme of the
fantastic ;showy and foolish as the sort of thing an
as
Indian medicine-man wears. He was mowing, and
mumbling, and gesticulating, and drawing mystical
figures in the air and on the floor —
the regular thing,
you know. He was a celebrity from Asia so he —
said, and that was enough. That sort of evidence was
as good as gold, and passed current everywhere.
How easy and cheap it was to be a great magician
on this fellow's terms. His specialty was to tell you
what any individual on the face of the globe was do-
ing at the moment; and what he had done at any
time in the past, and what he would do at any time in
the future. He asked if any would like to know
what the Emperor of the East was doing now? The
sparkling eyes and the delighted rubbing of hands
226
 :

A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
—
made eloquent answer this reverend crowd would-
like to know what that monarch was at, just at this
moment. The fraud went through some more
mummery, and then made grave announcement:
"The high and mighty Emperor of the East doth
at this moment put money in the palm of a holy
begging friar —one, two, three pieces, d,nd they be all

of silver."
A buzz of admiring exclamations broke out, all
around
"It is marvelous!" "Wonderful!" "What study,
what labor, to have acquired a so amazing power as
this!"
Would they like to know what the Supreme Lord of
Inde was doing? Yes. He told them what the
Supreme Lord of Inde was doing. Then he told
them what the Sultan of Egypt was at; also what the
King of the Remote Seas was about. And so on and
so on; and with each new marvel the astonishment at
his accuracy rose higher and higher. They thought
he must surely strike an uncertain place some time;
but no, he never had to hesitate, he always knew, and
always with unerring precision. I saw that if this
thing went on I should lose my supremacy, this fellow
would capture my following, I should be left out in
the cold. I must put a cog in his wheel, and do it
right away, too. I said:
"If I might ask, I should very greatly like to know
what a certain person is doing."
"Speak, and freely. I will tell you."
—
"It will be difficult ^perhaps impossible."
"My art knoweth not that word. The more
227
 MARK TWAIN
difficult it is, the more certainly will I reveal it to
you."
You was working up the interest. It was
see, I
getting pretty high, too;you could see that by the
craning necks all around, and the half-suspended
breathing. So now I climaxed it:
"If you make no mistake —
you tell me trtdy
^if

what I want to know I will —

give you two hundred
silver pennies."
"The fortune is mine! I will tell you what you
would know."
"Then tell me what I am doing with my right
hand."
"Ah-h!" There was a general gasp of siirprise.
It had not occurred to anybody in the crowd ^that —
simple trick of inquiring about somebody who wasn't
ten thousand miles away. The magician was hit
hard it was an emergency that had never happened
;

in his experience before, and it corked him; he didn't

know how to meet it. He looked stunned, confused;
he couldn't say a word. "Come," I said, "what are
you waiting for? Is it possible you can answer up,
right off, and tell what anybody on the other side of
the earth is doing, and yet can't tell what a person is
doing who isn't three yards from you? Persons be-
hind me know what I am doing with my right hand
— they will indorse you if you tell correctly." He
was still dumb. "Very well, I'll teU you why you
don't speak up and tell it is because you don't know.
;

You a magician Good friends, this tramp is £, mere

!

fraud and liar."

This distressed the monks and terrified them.
228
 —
A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
They were not used to hearing these awful beings
called names, and they did not know what might be
the consequence. There was a dead silence now;
superstitious bodings were in every mind. The
magician began to pull his wits together, and when
he presently smiled an easy, nonchalant smile, it
spread a mighty relief around; for it indicated that
his mood was not destructive. He said:
It hath struck me speechless, the frivolity of this
'
'

person's speech. Let all know, if perchance there be

any who know it not, that enchanters of my degree

deign not to concern themselves with the doings of

any but kings, princes, emperors, them that be bom in
the purple and them only. Had ye asked me what
Arthur the great king is doing, it were another mat-
ter, and I had told ye; but the doings of a subject

interest me not."
"Oh, I misunderstood you. I thought you said
'anybody,' and so I supposed 'anybody' included
well, anybody; that is, everybody."
—
"It doth anybody that is of lofty birth; and the
better if he be royal."
"That, it meseemeth, might well be," said the ab-
bot, who saw his opportunity to smooth things and
avert disaster, "for it were not Ukely that so wonder-
ful a gift as this would be conferred for the revelation
of the concerns of lesser beings than such as be bom
near to the summits of greatness. Our Arthur the
king—"
"Would you know of him?" broke in the en-
chanter.
"Most gladly, yea, and gratefully."
229
 MARK TWAIN
Everybody was awe and interest again right
full of
away, the incorrigible They watched the in-
idiots.
cantations absorbingly, and looked at me with a
^' There, now, what can you say to that?" air, when

the annotincement came:

"The king is weary with the chase, and Keth in his
palace these two hours sleeping a dreamless sleep."
"God's benison upon him!" said the abbot, and
crossed himself; "may that sleep be to the refresh-
ment of his body and his soiil."
"And so it might be, if he were sleeping," I said,
"but the king is not sleeping, the king rides."
—
Here was trouble again a conflict of authority.
Nobody knew which of us to believe I stiU had some
;

reputation left. The magician's scorn was stirred,

and he said:
'
' Lo, I have seen many
wonderful soothsayers and
prophets and magicians in my life days, but none be-
fore that could sit idle and see to the heart of things
with never an incantation to help."
"You have lived in the woods, and lost much by it.
I use incantations myself, as this good brotherhood
—
are aware ^but only on occasions of moment."
When it comes to sarcasming, I reckon I know how
to keep my end up. That jab made this fellow
squirm. The abbot inquired after the queen and
the court, and got this information:
"They be all on sleep, being overcome by fatigue,
like as to the king."
I said:
"That is merely another lie. Half of them are
about their amusements, the queen and the other half
230
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
are not sleeping, they ride. Now perhaps you can
spread yourself a little, and tell us where the king and
queen and all that are this moment riding with them
are going?"
"They sleep now, as I said; but on the morrow
they will they go a journey toward the sea."
ride, for
"And where will they be the day after to-morrow at
vespers?"
"Far to the north of Camelot, and half their jour-
ney will be done."
That is another lie, by the space of a hundred and
fifty miles. Their jotirney wiU not be merely half
done, it wiU be all done, and they will be here, in this
valley."
That was a noble shot! abbot and the
It set the
monks in a whirl of excitement, and
rocked the en-
it

chanter to his base. I followed the thing right up:

"If the king does not arrive, I will have myself
ridden on a rail if he does I wiU ride you on a rail
:

instead."
Next day I went up to the telephone office and
found that the king had passed through two towns
that were on the line. I spotted his progress on the
succeeding day in the same way. I kept these mat-
ters to myself. The third day's reports showed that
if he kept up his gait he would arrive by four in the

afternoon. There was still no sign anywhere of in-

terest in his coming; there seemed to be no prepara-
tions making to receive him in state; a strange
thing, truly. Only one thing could explain this:
that other magician had been cutting under me, sure.
This was true. I asked a friend of mine, a monk,
23X
 MARK TWAIN
about it,and he said, yes, the magician had tried
some ftirther enchantments and found out that the
court had concluded to make no journey at all, but
stay at home. Think of that ! Observe how much
a reputation was worth in such a country. These
people had seen me do the very showiest bit of magic
in history, and the only one within their memory
that had a positive value, and yet here they were,
ready to take up with an adventurer who could offer
no evidence of his powers but his mere improven
word.
However, itwas not good politics to let the king
come without any fuss and feathers at all, so I went
down and drummed up a procession of pilgrims and
smoked out a batch of hermits and started them out
at two o'clock to meet him. And that was the sort
of state he arrived in. The abbot was helpless with
rage and humiliation when I brought him out on a
balcony and showed him the head of the state march-
ing in and never a monk on hand to offer him wel-
come, and no stir of life or clang of joy-bell to glad
his spirit. He took one look and then flew to rouse
out his forces. The next minute the bells were
dinning fxiriously, and the various buildings were
vomiting monks and nuns, who went swarming in a
rush toward the coming procession; and with them
—
went that magician and he was on a rail, too, by the
abbot's order; and his reputation was in the mud,
and mine was in the sky again. Yes, a man can
keep his trade-mark current in such a country, but
he can't sit around and do it; he has got to be on
deck and attending to business right along.
232
 —

CHAPTER XXV
A COMPETITIVE EXAMINATION

WHEN
made
the king traveled for change of air, or
a progress, or visited a distant noble
whom he wished to bankrupt with the cost of his
keep, part of the administration moved with him.
It was a fashion of the time. The Commission
charged with the examination of candidates for posts
in the army came with the king to the Valley, where-
as they coiild have transacted their business just as
well at home. And although this expedition was
strictly a holiday excursion for the king, he kept
some of his business fimctions going just the same.
He touched for the evil, as usual; he held court in
the gate at sunrise and tried cases, for he was him-
self Chief Justice of the King's Bench.
He shone very well in this latter office. He was a
wise and humane judge, and he clearly did his honest
—
best and fairest ^according to his lights. That is a
large reservation. —
His lights I mean his rearing
often colored his decisions. Whenever there was a
dispute between a noble or gentleman and a person of
lower degree, the king's leanings and sympathies were
for the former class always, whether he suspected it or
not. It was impossible that this should be otherwise.
The blunting effects of slavery upon the slaveholder's
2^3
 —
MARK TWAIN
moral perceptions are known and conceded, the world
over; and a privileged class, an aristocracy, is but a
band of slaveholders under another name. This has
a harsh sound, and yet should not be offensive to any
— —
even to the noble himself unless the fact itself be
an offense: for the statement simply formulates a
fact. The repulsive feature of slavery is the thing,
•not itsname. One needs but to hear an aristocrat
speak of the classes that are below him to recognize
and in but indifferently modified measure the very —
air and tone of the actual slaveholder; and behind
these are the slaveholder's spirit, the slaveholder's
blunted feeling. They are the result of the same
cause in both cases: the possessor's old and inbred
custom of regarding himself as a superior being3 The
king's judgments wrought frequent injustices, but it

was merely the fault of his training, his natural and

vmalterable sympathies. He was as unfitted for a
judgeship as would be the average mother for the
position of milk-distributer to starving children in
famine-time; her own children would fare a shade
better than the rest.
One very curious case came before the king. A
young an orphan, who had a considerable estate,
girl,

married a fine young fellow who had nothing. The

girl's property was within a seigniory held by the

Chxirch. The bishop of the diocese, an arrogant

scion of the great nobility, claimed the girl's estate on
the ground that she had married privately, and thus
had cheated the Church out of one of its rights as lord
—
of the seigniory the one heretofore referred to as
le droit du seigneur. The penalty of refusal or
234
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
avoidance was confiscation. The girl's defense was,
that the lordship of the seigniory was vested in the
bishop, and the particular right here involved was
not transferable, but must be exercised by the lord
himself or stand vacated; and that an older law, of
the Church itself, strictly barred the bishop from
exercising it. It was a very odd case, indeed.
It reminded me of something I had read in my
youth about the ingenious way in which the alder-
men of London raised the money that built the
Mansion House. A person who had not taken the
Sacrament according to the Anglican rite could not
stand as a candidate for sheriff of London. Thus
Dissenters were ineligible; they could not nm if
asked, they could not serve if elected. The alder-
men, who without any question were Yankees in
disguise, hit upon this neat device they passed a by-
:

law imposing a fine of £400 upon any one who should

refuse to be a candidate for sheriff, and a fine of
£600 upon any person who, after being elected sheriff,
refused to serve. Then they went to work and
elected a lot of Dissenters, one after another, and
kept it up tmtil they had collected £15,000 in fines;
and there stands the stately Mansion House to this
day, to keep the blushing citizen in mind of a long
past and lamented day when a band of Yankees
slipped into London and played games of the sort
v/'
that has given their race a tmique and shady reputa-
tion among all truly good and holy peoples that be
in the earthy
The girl's case seemed strong to me; the bishop's
case was just as strong. I did not see how the king
23s
 MARK TWAIN
was going to get out of this hole. But he got out. I
append his decision:
"Truly I find small diflficulty here, the matter be-
ing even a child's affair for simpleness. An the
young bride had conveyed notice, as in duty bound,
to her feudal lord and proper master and protector
the bishop, she had suffered no loss, for the said
bishop could have got a dispensation making him,
for temporary conveniency, eligible to the exercise
and thus would she have kept all
of his said right,
she had. Whereas, failing in her first duty, she hath
by that failiire failed in all; for whoso, clinging to a
rope, severeth it above his hands, must fall; it being
no defense to claim that the rest of the rope is

soimd, neither any deliverance from his peril, as he

shall find. Pardy, the woman's case is rotten at the
source. It is the decree of the court that she forfeit

to the said lord bishop all her goods, even to the last

farthing that doth possess, and be thereto

she
mulcted in the costs. Next!"
Here was a tragic end to a beautiful hone3mioon
not yet three months old. Poor young creattires!
They had lived these three months lapped to the lips
in worldly comforts. These clothes and trinkets they
were wearing were as fine and dainty as the shrewdest
stretch of the sumptuary laws allowed to people of
their degree; and in these pretty clothes, she cr3ang
on his shoulder, and he trying to comfort her with
hopeful words set to the music of despair, they went
from the judgment seat out into the world homeless,
bedless, breadless; why, the very beggars by the
roadsides were not so poor as they.
236
 —
A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
Well, the king was out of the hole; and on terms
satisfactory to the Church and the rest of the aristoc-
racy, no doubt, ^en write many fine and plausible
arguments in support of monarchy, but the fact re-
mains that where every man in a state has a vote,
brutal laws are impossible. Arthur's people were of
course poor material for a republic, because they had
been debased so long by monarchy and yet even they
;

would have been intelligent enough to make short

work of that law which the king had just been ad-
ministering if it had been submitted to their ftdl and
free vote. There is a phrase which has grown so com-
mon in the world's mouth that it has come to seem
—
to have sense and meaning ^the sense and meaning
impUed when it is used; that is the phrase which re-
fers to this or that or the other nation as possibly
being "capable of self-goveniment " and the implied
;

sense of it is, that there has been a nation somewhere,

some time or which wasn't capable of it
other,
wasn't as able to govern itself as some self-appointed
specialists were or would be to govern it. The
master minds of all nations, in all ages, have sprung
in affluent multitude from the mass of the nation,
—
and from the mass of the nation only ^not from its
privileged classes; and so, no matter what the na-
tion's intellectual grade was, whether high or low,
the bulk of its ability was in the long ranks of its
nameless and its poor, and so it never saw the day
that it had not the material in abtmdance whereby
to govern itself. Which is to assert an always self-
proven fact: that even the best-governed and most
free and most enlightened monarchy is stiU behind
237
 MARK TWAIN
the best condition attainable by its people!] and that
the same is true of kindred governments of lower
grades, all the way down to the lowest.
King Arthur had hurried up the army business
altogether beyond my calculations. I had not sup-
posed he would move in the matter while I was away;
and so I had not mapped out a scheme for determin-
ing the merits of officers; I had only remarked that it
would be wise to submit every candidate to a sharp
and searching examination; and privately I meant to
put together a list of military qualifications that no-
body could answer to but my West-Pointers. That
ought to have been attended to before I left for the ;

king was so taken with the idea of a standing army

that he couldn't wait but must get about it at once,
and get up as good a scheme of examination as he
coiild invent out of his own head.
I was impatient to see what this was and to show, ;

too, how much more admirable was the one which I

should display to the Examining Board. I intimated
this, gently, to the king, and it fired his curiosity.
When the Board was assembled, I followed him in,
and behind us came the candidates. One of these
candidates was a bright young West-Pointer of n:iine,
and with him were a couple of my West Point
professors.
When I saw the Board, I did not know whether to
cry or to laugh. The head of it was the officer known
to later centuries as Norroy King-at- Arms The two !

other members were chiefs of bureaus in his depart-

ment and all three were priests, of course all officials
; ;

who had to know how to read and write were priests.

238
 : '

A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
My candidate was called first, out of cotirtesy to
me, and the head of the Board opened on him with
official solemnity:
"Name?"
"Mal-ease."
"Son of?"
"Webster."
'
Webster
'
—
Webster. H'm I my memory — —
faileth to recall the name. Condition?"
"Weaver."
—
"Weaver! God keep us!"
The king was staggered, from his summit to his
foundations one clerk fainted, and the others came
;

near it. The chairman pulled himself together, and

said indignantly
" It Get you hence.
is stLfficient.
'

But I appealed to the king. I begged that my can-

didate might be examined. The king was willing, but
the Board, who were all well-bom folk, implored the
king to spare them the indignity of examining the
weaver's son. I knew they didn't know enough to
examine him anyway, so I joined my prayers to theirs
and the king turned the duty over to my professors.
I had had a blackboard prepared, and it was put up
now, and the circus began. It was beautifxd to hear
the lad lay out the science of war, and wallow in de-
tails of battle and siege, of supply, transportation,
mining and countermining, grand tactics, big strategy
and little strategy, signal service, infantry, cavalry,
artillery, and all about siege-guns, field-guns, Gatling
gims, rifled gtms, smooth bores, musket practice,
revolver practice —and not a solitary word of it all

239
 —
MARK TWAIN
could these catfish make head or tail of, you under-
—
stand and it was handsome to see him chalk off
mathematical nightmares on the blackboard that
would stump the angels themselves, and do it Hke
—
nothing, too all about eclipses, and comets, and
solstices, and and mean time, and
constellations,
sidereal time, and dinner-time, and bedtime, and
every other imaginable thing above the clouds or
under them that you coiild harry or bullyrag an
enemy with and make him wish he hadn't come
and when the boy made his military salute and stood
aside at last, I was proud enough to hug him, and
all those other people were so dazed they looked
partly petrified, partly drtmk, and wholly caught
out and snowed under. I judged that the cake was
ours, and by a large majority.
Education is a great thing. This was the same
youth who had come to West Point so ignorant that
when I asked him, "If a general officer should have a
horse shot under him on the field of battle, what
ought he to do?" answered up naively and said:
"Get up and brush himself."
One of the yoimg nobles was called up now. I
thought I would question him a little myself. I said:
"Can your lordship read?"
His face flushed indignantly, and he fired this at
me:
"Takest me for a clerk? I trow I am not of a
blood that—"
"Answer the question!"
He crowded his wrath down and made out to
answer "No."
240
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
"Can you write?"
He wanted to resent this, too, but I said:
"You will confine yotu-self to the questions, and
make no comments. You are not here to air your
blood or your graces, and nothing of the sort will be
permitted. Can you write ?"
"No."
"Do you know the mtoltiplication table?"
"I wit not what ye refer to."
"How much is nine times six?"

"It is a mystery that is hidden from me by reason

that the emergency requiring the fathoming of it hath
not in my life-days occurred, and so, not having no
need to know this thing, I abide barren of the
knowledge."
"If A trade a barrel of onions to B, worth two-
pence the bushel, in exchange for sheep worth four-
pence and a dog worth a penny, and C kill the dog
before delivery, because bitten by the same, who
mistook him for D, what sum is still due to A from
B, and which party pays for the dog, C or D, and
who gets the money? If A, is the penny sufficient,
or may he claim consequential damages in the form
of additional money to represent the possible profit
which might have inured from the dog, and classifi-

able as earned increment, that is to say, usufruct?"

"Verily, in the all-wise and unknowable providence
of God, who moveth in mysterious ways His wonders
to perform, have I never heard the fellow to this
question for confusion of the mind and congestion of
the ducts of thought. Wherefore I beseech you let
the dog and the onions and these people of the
241
 MARK TWAIN
strange and godless names work out their several
salvations from their piteous and wonderful difficul-

tieswithout help of mine, for indeed their trouble is

sufficient as itis, whereas an I tried to help I should

but damage their cause the more and yet mayhap

not live myself to see the desolation wrought."
"What do you know of the laws of attraction and
gravitation?"
"If there be such, mayhap his grace the king did
promulgate them whilst that I lay sick about the
beginning of the year and thereby failed to hear his
proclamation."
"What do you know of the science of optics?"
"I know of governors of places, and seneschals of
castles, and sheriffs of cotmties, and many like small
offices and titles of honor, but him you call the

Science of Optics I have not heard of before; perad-

venture it is a new dignity."
"Yes, in this cotmtry."
Try to conceive of this moUusk gravely applying
for an official position, of any kind under the sun'
Why, he had aU the earmarks of a typewriter copjast,
if you leave out the disposition to contribute unin-
vited emendations of your grammar and punctuation.
It was unaccountable that he didn't attempt a little

help of that sort out of his majestic supply of inca-

pacity for the job. But that didn't prove that he
hadn't material in him for the disposition, it only
proved that he wasn't a typewriter copyist yet. After
nagging him a little more, I let the professors loose
on him and they turned him inside out, on the line
of scientific war, and found him empty, of course.
842
 '

A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
He knew somewhat about the warfare of the time-
bushwhacking around for ogres, and bull-fights in the
tournament ring, and such things ^but otherMrise he —
was empty and useless. Then we took the other
yoimg noble in hand, and he was the first one's twin,
for ignorance and incapacity. I delivered them into
the hands of the chairman of the Board with the
comfortable consciousness that their cake was dough.
They were examined in the previous order of prece-
dence.
"Name, so please you?"
"Pertipole, son of Sir Pertipole, Baron of Barley
Mash."
"Grandfather?"
"Also Sir Pertipole, Baron of Barley Mash."
' '
' Great-grandfather ?
"The same name and title."
"Great-great-grandfather?"
"We had none, worshipful sir, the line failing be-
fore ithad reached so far back."
"It mattereth not. It is a good four generations,
and fulfiUeth the requirements of the rule."
"Fulfils what rule?" I asked.
"The rule requiring four generations of nobility
or else the candidate not eligible."
is

"A man not a lieutenancy in the army

eligible for
unless he can prove four generations of noble de-
scent?"
"Even so; neither lieutenant nor any other officer
may be commissioned without that qualification."
"Oh, come, this is an astonishing thing. What
good is such a qualification as that?"
243
 :

MARK TWAIN
"What good? It is a hardy question, fair sir and
Boss, since it impugn the wisdom of
doth go far to
even our holy Mother Church herself."
"As how?"
"For that she hath established the selfsame rule
regarding saints. By her law none may be canonized
until he hath lain dead four generations."
"I see, I see— ^it is the same thing. It is wonder-
ful. In the one case a man lies dead-alive four genera-
—
tions ^mummified in ignorance and sloth and that —
qualifieshim to command live people, and take their
weal and woe into his impotent hands; and in the
other case, a man lies bedded with death and worms
four generations, and that qualifies him for office in
the celestial camp. Does the king's grace approve
of this strange law?"
The king said
"Why, truly I naught about it that is strange.
see
All places of honor and of profit do belong, by natural
right, to them that be of noble blood, and so these
dignities in the army are their property and wotdd be
so without this or any rule. The rule is but to mark a
limit. Its purpose is to keep out too recent blood,
which would bring into contempt these offices, and
men of lofty Hneage would turn their backs and scorn
to take them. I were to blame an I permitted this
calamity. You can permit it an you are minded so
to do, for you have the delegated authority, but
that the king should do it were a most strange
madness and not comprehensible to any."
"I yield. Proceed, sir Chief of the Herald's Col-
lege."
244
 :

A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
The chairman resumed as follows
"By what illustrious achievement for the honor of
the Throne and state did the founder of your great
line lift himself to the sacred dignity of the British
nobility?"
"He built a brewery."
"Sire, the Board finds this candidate perfect in all
the requirements and qualifications for military com-
mand, and doth hold his case open for decision after
due examination of his competitor."
The competitor came forward and proved exactly
four generations of nobility himself. So there was a
tie in military qualifications that far.

He stood aside a moment, and Sir Pertipole was

questioned further:
"Of what condition was the wife of the founder of
yottr line?"
"She came of the highest landed gentry, yet she
was not noble; she was gracious and pure and chari-
table, of a blameless life and character, insomuch
that in these regards was she peer of the best lady
in the land."
"That will do. Stand down." He called up the
competing lordling again, and asked What was the
:
'
'

rank and condition of the great-grandmother who

conferred British nobility upon your great house?"
"She was a king's leman and did climb to that
splendid eminence by her own unholpen merit from
the sewer where she was bom."
"Ah, this, indeed, is true nobility, this is the right
and perfect intermixture. The lieutenancy is yours,
fair lord. Hold it not in contempt; it is the humble
24S
 !

MARK TWAIN
step which will lead to grandeurs more worthy of the
splendor of an origin like to thine."
I was down in the bottomless pit of humiliation. I

had promised myself an easy and zenith-scouring

triumph, and this was the outcome
I was almost ashamed to look my poor disap-
pointed cadet in the face. I told him to go home and
be patient, this wasn't the end.
I had a private audience with the king, and made
a proposition. I said it was quite right to officer that
regiment with nobilities, and he couldn't have done
a wiser thing. It would also be a good idea to add
five hundred officers to it; in fact, add as many
officers as there were nobles and relatives of nobles
in the country, even if there should finally be five
times as many officers as privates in it; and thus
make it the crack regiment, the envied regiment, the
King's Own regiment, and entitled to fight on its

own hook and in its own way, and go whither it would

and come when it pleased, in time of war, and be
utterly swell and independent. This would make
that regiment the heart's desire of all the nobility,
and they would all be satisfied and happy. Then we
would make up the rest of the standing army out of
commonplace materials, and officer it with nobodies,
—
as was proper ^nobodies selected on a basis of mere
efficiency —and we would make this regiment toe the
line, allow it no aristocratic freedom from restraint,

and force it to do all the work and persistent hammer-

ing, to the end that whenever the King's Own was
tired and wanted to go off for a change and rummage
arovmd amongst ogres and have a good time, it could
246
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
go without tineasiness, knowing that matters were
in safe hands behind it, and business going to be
continued at the old stand, same as usual. The king
was charmed with the idea.
When I noticed that, it gave me a valuable notion.
I thought I saw my way
out of an old and stubborn
difficulty at last. Youthe royalties of the Pen-
see,
dragon stock were a long-lived race and very fruitful.
Whenever a child was bom to any of these and it —
—
was pretty often there was wild joy in the nation's
mouth, and piteous sorrow in the nation's heart.
The joy was questionable, but the grief was honest.
Because the event meant another call for a Royal
Grant. Long was the list of these royalties, and they
were a heavy and steadily increasing btirden upon
the treasury and a menace to the crown. Yet Arthur
could not believe this latter fact, and he would not
listen to any of my various projects for substituting
something in the place of the royal grants. If I
could have persuaded him to now and then provide
a support for one of these outlying scions from his
own pocket, I could have made a grand to-do over
it, and it would have had a good effect with the

nation; but no, he wouldn't hear of such a thing.

He had something like a religious passion for royal
grant; he seemed to look upon it as a sort of sacred
swag, and one could not irritate him in any way so
quickly and so surely as by an attack upon that
venerable institution. If I ventured to cautiously
hint that there was not another respectable fam-
ily in England that would humble itself to hold
out the hat — however, that is as far as I ever got;
247
 MARK TWAIN
he always cut me short there, and peremptorily,
too.
But I believed I saw m.y chance at last. I would
form this crack regiment out of officers alone not —
a single private. Half of it should consist of nobles,
who should fill all the places up to Major-General,

and serve gratis and pay their own expenses; and

they would be glad to do this when they should learn
that the rest of the regiment would consist exclusively
of princes of the blood. These princes of the blood
should range in rank from Lieutenant-General up
to Field Marshal, and be gorgeously salaried and
equipped and fed by the state. Moreover and this —
—
was the master stroke ^it should be decreed that
these princely grandees should be always addressed
by a stunningly gaudy and awe-compelling title
(which I would presently invent), and they and they
only in all England should be so addressed. Finally,
aU princes .of the blood should have free choice;
title, and renounce
join that regiment, get that great
the royal grant, or stay out and receive a grant.
Neatest touch of all: unborn but imminent princes
of the blood could be born into the regiment, and
start fair, with good wages and a permanent situa-
tion, upon due notice from the parents.
All the boyswould join, I was sure of that; so, all
would be relinquished; that the newly
existing grants
born would always join was equally certain. Within
sixty days that quaint and bizarre anomaly, the
Royal Grant, wotdd cease to be a living fact, and take
its place among the curiosities of the past.

348
 CHAPTER XXVI
THE FIRST NEWSPAPER

WHEN I told the king I was going out disguised

as a petty freeman to scour the country and
familiarize myself with the humbler life of the people,
he was all afirewith the novelty of the thing in a
minute, and was bound to take a chance in the adven-
—
ture himself nothing should stop him ^he would —
—
drop everything and go along ^it was the prettiest
idea he had run across for many a day. He wanted
to glide out the back way and start at once; but I
showed him that that wouldn't answer. You see, he
—
was billed for the Idng's-evil to touch for it, I mean
— and it wouldn't be right to disappoint the house;
and it wouldn't make a delay worth considering, any-
way, it was only a one-night stand. And I thought
he ought to tell the queen he was going away. He
clouded up at that and looked sad. I was sorry I
had spoken, especially when he said mournfully:
"Thou forgettest that Launcelot is here; and where
Launcelot is, she noteth not the going forth of the
king, nor what day he retumeth."
Of course, I changed the subject. Yes, Guenever
was beautiful, it is true, but take her all around she
was pretty slack. I never meddled in these matters,
they weren't my aflfair, but I did hate to see the way
249
 MARK TWAIN
things were going on, and I don't mind saying that
much. Many's the time she had asked me, "Sir
Boss, hast seen Sir Launcelot about?" but if ever she
went fretting around for the king I didn't happen to
be around at the time.
There was a very good lay-out for the king's-evil
—
business ^very tidy and creditable. The king sat
under a canopy of state; about him were clustered a
large body of the clergy in full canonicals. Conspicu-
ous, both for location and personal outfit, stood
Marinel, a hermit of the quack-doctor species, to
introduce the sick. All abroad over the spacious
floor, and clear down to the doors, in a thick jumble,
lay or sat the scrofulous, under a strong Hght. It
was as good as a tableau; in fact, it had all the look
of being gotten up for that, though it wasn't. There
were eight hundred sick people present. The work
was slow; it lacked the interest of novelty for me,
because I had seen the ceremonies before; the thing
soon became tedious, but the proprieties required me
to stick it out. The doctor was there for the reason
that inall such crowds there were many people who

only imagined something was the matter with them,

and many who were consciously sound but wanted
the immortal honor of fleshly contact with a king, and
yet others who pretended to illness in order to get
the piece of coin that went with the touch. Up to
this time this coin bad been a wee little gold piece
worth about a third of a dollar. When you consider
how much that amount of money would buy, in that
age and country, and how usual it was to be scrofu-
lous, when not dead, you would understand that the
250
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
annual king's-evil appropriation was just the River
and Harbor bill of that government for the grip it
took on the treasury and the chance it afforded for
skinning the surplus. So I had privately concluded
to touch the treasury itself for the king's-evil. I
covered six-sevenths of the appropriation into the
treasury a week before starting from Camelot on my
adventures, and ordered that the other seventh be
inflated into five-cent nickels and delivered into the
hands of the head clerk of the King's Evil Depart-
ment; a nickel to take the place of each gold coin,
you see, and do its work for it. It might strain the
nickel some, but I judged it could stand it. As a
rule, I do not approve of watering stock, but I con-
sidered it square enough in this case, for it was just
a gift, anyway. Of course, you can water a gift as
much as you want to; and I generally do. The old
gold and silver coins of the country were of ancient
and unknown origin, as a rule, but some of them were
Roman; they were iU-shapen, and seldom rounder
than a moon that is a week past the full they were
;

hammered, not minted, and they were so worn with

use that the devices upon them were as illegible as
blisters, and looked like them. I judged that a
sharp, bright new nickel, with a first-rate likeness of
the king on one side of it and Guenever on the other,
and a blooming pious motto, would take the tuck
out of scrofula as handy as a nobler coin and please
the scrofulous fancy more; and I was right. This
batch was the first it was tried on, and it worked
to a charm. The saving in expense was a notable
economy. You will see that by these figures: We
251
 —
MARK TWAIN
touched a trifle over seven hvmdred of the eight hun-
dred patients; at former rates, this would have cost
the government about two hundred and forty dollars;
at the new rate we pulled through for about thirty-
five dollars, thus saving upward of two hundred dol-
lars at one swoop. To appreciate the full magnitude
of this stroke, consider these other figures
the annual
:

expenses of a national government amount to the

equivalent of a contribution of three days' average
wages of every individual of the population, cotmting
every individual as if he were a man. If you take a
nation of sixty millions, where average wages are two
dollars per day, three days' wages taken from each
individual will provide three himdred and sixty mil-
lion dollars and pay the government's expenses. In
my day, in my own coimtry, this money was collected
from imposts, and the citizen imagined that the
foreign importer paid it, and it made him comfortable
to think so; whereas, in fact, it was paid by the
American people, and was so equally and exactly dis-
tributed among them that the annual cost to the one-
himdred-millionaire and the annual cost to the suck-
ing child of the day-laborer was precisely the same
each paid six dollars. Nothing could be equaler than
^that, I reckon. Well, Scotland and Ireland were
tributary to Arthur, and the united populations of the
British Islands amotmted to something less than one
million. A mechanic's average wage was three cents
a day, when he paid his own keep. By this rule the
national government's expenses were ninety thousand
dollars a year, or about two hundred and fifty dollars
a day. Thus, by the substitution of nickels for gold
 —
A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
on a king's-evil day, I not only injtired no one, dis-
satisfied no one, but pleased
concerned and saved
all
four-fifths of that day's national expense into the bar-
—
gain a saving which would have been the equivalent
of eight hundred thousand dollars in my day in
America. In making this substitution I had drawn
upon the wisdom of a very remote source the wis- —
—
dom of my boyhood ^for the true statesman does
not despise any wisdom, howsoever lowly may be its
origin in my boyhood I had always saved my pennies
:

and contributed buttons to the foreign missionary

cause. The buttons wotild answer the ignorant sav-
age as well as the coin, the coin would answer me
better than the buttons; all hands were happy and
nobody hurt.
Marinel took the patients as they came. He ex-
amined the candidate if he couldn't qualify he was
;

warned off; if he could he was passed along to the

king. A priest pronounced the words, "They shall
lay their hands on the sick, and they shall recover."
Then the king stroked the ulcers, while the reading
continued; finally, the patient graduated and got his
—
nickel the king hanging it around his neck himself
and was dismissed. Would you think that that
would cure? It certainly did. Any mummery will
cure if the patient's faith is strong in it. Up by
Astolat there was a chapel where the Virgin had once
appeared to a girl who used to herd geese around
there— ^the girl said so herself —and they built the
chapel upon that spot and hung a picture in it repre-
senting the occurrence —a picture which you would
think it dangerous for a sick person to approach;
2 53
 MARK. TWAIN
whereas, on the contrary, thousands of the lame and
the sick came and prayed before it every year and
went away whole and sound; and even the well could
look upon it Of course, when I was told
and live.

these things I did not believethem but when I went ;

there and saw them I had to succumb. I saw the

ciires effected myself; and they were real cures and
not questionable. I saw cripples whom I had seen
around Camelot for years on crutches, arrive and
pray before that picture, and put down their crutches
and walk off without a limp. There were piles of
crutches there which had been left by such people as
a testimony.
In other places people operated on a patient's
mind, without saying a word to him, and cured him.
In others, experts assembled patients in a room and
prayed over them, and appealed to their faith, and
those patients went away cured. Wherever you find
a king who can't cure the king's-evil you can be sure
that the most valuable superstition that supports his
throne — ^the subject's belief in the divine appoint-
ment of his sovereign —
has passed away. In my
youth the monarchs of England had ceased to touch
for the evil, but there was no occasion for this diffi- .

dence they could have cured it forty-nine times in

:

fifty.

Well, when the priest had been droning for three

hours, and the good king polishing the evidences, and
the sick were still pressing forward as plenty as ever,
I got to feeling intolerably bored. was sitting by
I
an open window not far from the canopy of state.
For the five htmdredth time a patient stood forward
2^i
o
o
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
to have his repulsivenesses stroked; again those
words were being droned out: "they shall lay their
—
hands on the sick" ^when outside there rang clear as
a clarion a note that enchanted my soul and tumbled
thirteen worthless centuries about my ears: "Game-
lot Weekly Hosannah and Literary Volcano! ^latest —
— —
irruption only two cents ^all about the big miracle
in the Valley of Holiness!" One greater than kings
—
had arrived ^the newsboy. But I was the only per-
son in all that throng who knew the meaning of this
mighty birth, and what this imperial magician was
come into the world to do.
I dropped a nickel out of the window and got my
paper; the Adam-newsboy of the world went arotmd
the comer to get my change; is around the comer
yet. It was delicious to see a newspaper again, yet I
was conscious of a secret shock when my eye fell
upon the first batch of display head-lines. I had
lived in a clammy atmosphere of reverence, respect,
deference, so long that they sent a quivery little cold
"^ave through me:

HIGH TIMES IN THE VALLEY

OF HOLINESS!

THE WATER-mORKS CORKED!

BRER MERLIN WORKS HIS ArTS, 'bUT GETS

Left?

But t he Boss scores on his first Inningsl

255
 MARK TWAIN
The Miraculous Well Uncorked amid

awful outbursts of

INFERNAL FIRE AND SMOKE

ANDTHUNDER!

THE auZZARD-ROOST ASTONISHED!

UNPARALLELED REJOIBINGS!

—and so on, and so on. Yes, it was too loud. Once

I could have enjoyed and seen nothing out of the
it

way about it, but now its note was discordant. It

was good Arkansas journalism, but this was not Ar-
kansas. Moreover, the next to the last line was
calculated to give offense to the hermits, and perhaps
lose us their advertising. Indeed, there was too light-
some a tone of flippancy all through the paper. It
was plain I had undergone a considerable change
without noticing found myself unpleasantly
it. I
affected by pert little which would have
irreverencies
seemed but proper and airy graces of speech at an
earlier period of my life. There was an abundance
of the following breed of items, and they discom-
forted me:

256
A CONNECTICUT YANKEE

Local Smoke and Cindtrs,

Sir Launceio) met up with old King

Vgrivance of Ireland unexpectedly last

weok over on the moor south of Sir

Balmoral le Merveilleuse's hog dasture.

The widow has been notified.

Expedition No. 3 will start adout the

first of mextjmgnthjon a search fSr Sir

Sagramour le Desirous. It is in com-

and of tlie renowned Knight of the Red

Lawns, assissted by Sir Persant of Inde,

who is compete9t. intelligent, courte-

ous, and in every May a brick, and fur-

tHer assisted by Sir Falamides the Sara-

cen, who is no huckleberry binself.

This is no pic-nic, these boys mean

busine&s.

The readers of the Hosannah will re-

gret to learn that the hadndsome and

popular Sir Charolais of Gaul, who dur-

ing his four weeks' stay at the Bull and

Halibut, this^city, has won every heart

by his polished mapners and elegant

cITnversation, will pull out to-day for

home. Give us another call, Charley I

The bdsiness end of the funeral of

the late Sir Dalliance the duke's son of

257
 MARK TWAIN
Cornwall, killed in an encounter with

the Giant of the Knotted Bludgeon last

J,uesday on the borders of the Plain of

Enchantment was in the hands of the

ever affable and eigcient ^^''^^^^f

prince of un3ertakers, then whom there

exists none by whom it were a more

satisfying pleasure to have the last sad

offices performed. Give him a trial.

The ccmlsl thanks of the Hfsannah

ofHce are due, from editor down to

devil, to the ever courteous and thought-

ful Lord High StewMd of the Palace's

Third Assistant V^» t for several sau-

cets of ice crEam^'a quality calculated

to make the ey^of the recipients hu-

mid with grt ude; and it done it.

When this ^administration wants to

chalk up a desirable nazwe for early

promotion, the Hosannah would like a

cnance to sudgest.

The Demoiselle Irene Qewlap, of

South Astolat, is visiting her uncle, the

popular host of the Cattlemen's Board-

ing Ho&se, Liver Lane, this city.

Young Barker the bellows-mender is

hoMe again, and looks much improved

by his vacation round-up among the out-

lying smithies, gee his ad.

2S8
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
Of course was good enough journalism for a
it

beginning; I knew
that quite well, and yet it was
somehow disappointing. The "Court Circular"
pleased me better; indeed, its simple and dignified
respectfulness was a distinct refreshment to me after
all those disgraceful familiarities. But even it could
have been improved. Do what one may, there is no
getting an air of variety into a court circular, I
acknowledge that. There is a profound monotonous-
ness about its facts that baffles and defeats one's
sincerest efforts to make them sparkle and enthuse.
—
The best way to manage in fact, the only sensible
way — ^is to disguise repetitiousness of fact under
variety of form : skin your fact each time and lay on
a new cuticle of words. It deceives the eye; you
think it is a new fact; it gives you the idea that the
court is canying on like everything; this excites you,
and you drain the whole column, with a good appe-
tite, and perhaps never notice that it's a barrel of

soup made out of a single bean. Clarence's way was

good, it was simple, it was dignified, it was direct
and businesslike; all I say is, it was not the best way:
Court Ciecular.
 MARK TWAIN
were observable here and there, but there were not
enough of them to amount to anything, and it was
good enough Arkansas proof-reading, anyhow, and
better than was needed in Arthur's day and realm.
As a rule, the grammar was leaky and the construc-
tion more or less lame but I did not much mind these
;

things. They are common defects of my own, and

one mustn't criticize other people on grounds where
he can't stand perpendicular himself.
I was hungry enough for literature to want to take
down the whole paper at this one meal, but I got
only a few bites, and then had to postpone, because
the monks around me besieged me so with eager
questions: What is this curious thing? What is it

for? Is it a handkerchief? —saddle-blanket?— ^part

of a shirt? What is it made of ? How thin it is, and

how dainty and frail; and how it rattles. Will it

wear, do you and won't the rain injure it? Is

think,
it writing that appears on it, or is it only ornamenta-

tion? They suspected it was writing, because those

among them who knew how to read Latin and had a
smattering of Greek, recognized some of the letters,
but they could make nothing out of the result as a
whole. I put my information in the simplest form I
cotdd:
" It is a public journal ; I will explain what that is,
another time. It is not cloth, it is made of paper;
some time I will explain what paper is. The lines on
it are reading-matter; and not written by hand, but

printed; by and by I wiU explain what printing is.

A thousand of these sheets have been made, all
exactly like this, in every minute detail they can't —
260
 : — :

A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
be told apart." Then they all broke out with excla-
mations of surprise and admiration
"A thousand! Verily a mighty work ^a year's—
work for many men."
—
"No ^merely a day's work for a man and a boy."
They crossed themselves, and whiffed out a pro-
tective prayer or two.
—
"Ah-h a miracle, a wonder! Dark work of en-
chantment."
I let it go at that. Then I read in a low voice, to as
many as could crowd their shaven heads within
hearing distance, part of the accotmt of the miracle
of the restoration of the well, and was accompanied
by astonished and reverent ejaculations aU through
"Ah-h-h!" "How true!" "Amazing, amazing!"
"These be the very haps as they happened, in mar-
velous exactness !" And might they take this strange
thing in their hands, and feel of it and examine it?
they would be very careful. Yes. So they took it,
handling it as cautiously and devoutly as if it had
been some holy thing come from some supernatural
region; and gently felt of its texture, caressed its
pleasant smooth surface with lingering touch, and
scanned the mysterious characters with fascinated
eyes. These grouped bent heads, these charmed faces,
these speaking eyes — how beautiful to me! For
was not this my darling, and was not all this mute
wonder and interest and homage a most eloquent
tribute and unforced compliment to it ? I knew, then,
how a mother feels when women, whether strangers
or friends, take her new baby, and close themselves
about it with one eager impulse, and bend their heads
261
 MARK TWAIN
over it in a tranced adoration that makes all the rest
of the universe vanish out of their consciousness and
be as if it were not, for that time. I knew how she
feels, and that there is no other satisfied ambition,
whether of king, conqueror, or poet, that ever reaches
half-way to that serene far summit or yields half
so divine a contentment.
During all the rest of the s6ance my paper traveled
from group to group all up and down and about that
huge haU, and my happy eye was upon it always, and
I sat motionless, steeped in satisfaction, drunk with
enjoyment. Yes, this was heaven; I was tasting it
once, if I might never taste it more.

262
 CHAPTER XXVII
THE YANKEE AND THE KING TRAVEL INCOGNITO

ABOUT bedtime I took the king to my private

i\ quarters to cut his hair and help him get the
hang of the lowly raiment he was to wear. The high
classes wore their hair banged across the forehead but
hanging to the shoulders the rest of the way around,
whereas the lowest ranks of commoners were banged
fore and aft both; the slaves were bangless, and
allowed their hair free growth. So I inverted a bowl
over his head and cut away all the locks that hung
below it. I also trimmed his whiskers and mustache
until they were only about a half-inch long; and tried
to do it inartistically, and succeeded. It was a vil-
lainous disfigurement. When he got his lubberly
sandals on, and his long robe of coarse brown linen
cloth, which hung straight from his neck to his ankle-
bones, he was no longer the comeliest man in his
kingdom, but one of the unhandsomest and most
commonplace and unattractive. We were dressed
and barbered alike, and could pass for small farmers,
or farm bailiffs, or shepherds, or carters yes, or for
;

village artisans, we chose, our costume being in

if

effect universal among the poor, because of its

strength and cheapness. I don't mean that it was
really cheap to a very poor person, but I do mean that
263
 MARK TWAIN
it was the cheapest material there was for male
—
attire manufactured material, you understand.
We slipped away an hour before dawn, and by
broad sun-up had made eight or ten miles, and were
in the midst of a sparsely settled country. I had a
pretty heavy knapsack; it was laden with provisions
— ^provisions for the king to taper down on, till he
could take to the coarse fare of the country without
damage.
I found a comfortable seat for the king by the road-
side, and then gave him a morsel or two to stay his
stomach with. Then I said I would find some water
for him, and strolled away. Part of my project was
to get out of sight and sit down and rest a little
myself. It had always been my custom to stand
when in his presence; even at the coimcil board,
except upon those rare occasions when the sitting was
a very long one, extending over hours then I had a
;

trifling Httle backless thing which was like a reversed

culvert and was as comfortable as the toothache. I
didn't want to break him in suddenly, but do it by
degrees. We should have to sit together now when
in company, or people would notice; but it would
not be good politics for me to be playing equality
with him when there was no necessity for it.
I foimd the water some three hundred yards away,
and had been resting about twenty minutes, when
I heard voices. That is all right, I thought— ^peasants
going to work; nobody else likely to be stirring this
early. But the next moment these comers jingled
—
into sight around a turn of the road smartly clad
people of quality, with luggage-mules and servants in
264
 " —
A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
their train was off like a shot, through the bushes,
! I
by the shortest cut.
For a while it did seem that
these people wotdd pass the king before I could get
to him; but desperation gives you wings, you know,
and I canted my body forward, inflated my breast,
and held my breath and flew. I arrived. And in
plenty good enough time, too.
"Pardon, my king, but it's no time for ceremony
—
jump! Jump to your feet some quality are com-
ing!"
"Is that a marvel? Let them come."
"But my liege! You must
not be seen sitting.
Rise! — ^and stand in humble posture while they pass.
You are a peasant,
you know."
"True I—had forgot it, so lost was I in planning

of a huge war with Gaul" —

^he was up by this time,

but a farm could have got up quicker, if there was

—
any kind of a boom in real estate "and right-so a
thought came randoming overthwart this majestic
dream the which —
"A humbler attitude, my lord the king and —
quick! Duck yotir head! —more!— still more!
droop it!"
He did his honest best, but lord, it was no great
things. He looked as humble as the leaning tower at
Pisa. It is the most you could say of it. Indeed, it

was such a thundering poor success that it raised

wondering scowls all along the line, and a gorgeous
flunkey at the tail end of it raised his whip; but I
jumped in time and was under it when it fell; and
under cover of the volley of coarse laughter which fol-
lowed, I spoke up sharply and warned the king to
265
 MARK TWAIN
take no notice. He mastered himself for the moment,
but it was a sore tax; he wanted to eat up the pro-
cession. I said:
"It would end our adventures at the very start;
and we, being without weapons, could do nothing
with that armed gang. If we are going to succeed in
our emprise, we must not only look the peasant but
act the peasant."
"It is wisdom; none can gainsay it. Let us go
on, Sir Boss. I will take note and learn, and do
the best I may."
He kept his word. He did the best he could, but
I've seen better. If you have ever seen an active,
heedless, enterprising child going diligently out of
one mischief and into another all day long,and an
anxious mother at its heels all the while, and just
saving it by a hair from drowning itself or breaking
its neck with each new experiment, you've seen the
king and me.
If I could have foreseen what the thing was going
to be like, I should have said. No, if anybody wants
to make his living exhibiting a king as a peasant,
let him take the layout; I can do better with a
menagerie, and last longer. And yet, during the
first three days I never allowed him to enter a hut
or other dwelling. If he could pass muster anywhere
dtuing his early novitiate, it would be in small inns
and on the road; so to these places we confined our-
selves. Yes, he certainly did the best he could, but
what of that? He didn't improve a bit that I could
see.
He was always frightening me, always breaking out
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 !

A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
with fresh astonishers, in new and unexpected places.
Toward evening on the second day, what does he do
but blandly fetch out a dirk from inside his robe
"Great guns, my Uege, where did you get that?"
"From a smuggler at the inn, yester eve."
"What in the world possessed you to buy it?"
"We have escaped divers dangers by wit ^thy —
—
wit ^but I have bethought me that it were but pru-
dence if I bore a weapon, too. Thine might fail thee
in some pinch."
"But people of our condition are not allowed to
carry arms. What would a lord say ^yes, or any —
—
other person of whatever condition ^if he caught an
upstart peasant with a dagger on his person?"
It was a lucky thing for us that nobody came along
just then. I persuaded him to throw the dirk away;
and it was as easy as persuading a child to give up
some bright fresh new way of killing itself. We
walked along, silent and thinking. Finally the king
said:
"When ye know that I meditate a thing incon-
venient, or that hath a peril in it, why do you not

warn me to cease from that project?"

It was a startling question, and a puzzler. I didn't
quite know how to take hold of it, or what to say,
and so, of course, I ended by saying the natural
thing:
"But, sire, how can I know what your thoughts
are?"
The king stopped dead in his tracks, and stared at
me.
"I believed thou wert greater than Merlin; and
267
 "

MARK TWAIN
truly in magic thou art. But prophecy is greater
than magic. Merlin is a prophet."
I saw had made a blunder. I must get back my
I
lost ground. After a deep reflection and careftd
planning, I said:
"Sire, I have been misunderstood. I will explain.
There are two kinds of prophecy. One is the gift to
foretell things that are but a little way off, the other
is the gift to foretell things that are whole ages and

centuries away. Which is the mightier gift, do you

think?"
"Oh, the last, most sirrely!"
"True. Does Merlin possess it?"
"Partly, yes. He foretold mysteries about my
birth and future kingship that were twenty years
away."
"Has he ever gone beyond that?"
"He would not claim more, I think."
"It is probably his limit. All prophets have their
limit. The limit of some of the great prophets has
been a hundred years."
"These are few, I ween."
"There have been two still greater ones, whose
limit was four hundred and six htmdred years, and
one whose limit compassed even seven hundred and
twenty."
"Gramercy, it is marvelous!"
"But what are these in comparison with me?
They are nothing."
"What? Canst thou tnily look beyond even so
vast a stretch of time as
—
"Seven hundred years? My liege, as clear as the
268
 —
A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
vision of an eagle does my prophetic eye penetrate
and lay bare the future of this world for nearly thir-
teen centuries and a half!"
My land, you should have seen the king's eyes
spread slowly open, and lift the earth's entire atmos-
phere as much as an inch That settled Brer Merlin.
!

One never had any occasion to prove his facts, with

these people; all he had to do was to state them. It
never occurred to anybody to doubt the statement.
"Now, then," I continued, "I could work both
—
kinds of prophecy ^the long and the short I — ^if

chose to take the trouble to keep in practice but I ;

seldom exercise any but the long kind, because the

other is beneath my dignity. It is properer to Mer-
lin's sort —stump-tail prophets, aswe call them in
the profession. Of course, I whet up now and then
and flirt out a minor prophecy, but not often
hardly ever, in fact. You will remember that there
was great talk, when you reached the Valley of Holi-
ness, about my having prophesied your coming and
the very hour of your arrival, two or three days
beforehand."
"Indeed, yes, I mind it now."
"Well, I cotdd have done it as much as forty times
easier, and piled on a thousand times more detail
into the bargain, if it had been five hundred years
away instead of two or three days."
"How amazing that it should be so!"
"Yes, a genuine expert can always foretell a thing
that is five hundred years away easier than he can a
thing that's only five hundred seconds off."
"And yet in reason it shoxild clearly be the other
 MARK TWAIN
way should be five hundred times as easy to fore-
; it

tell the last as the first, for, indeed, it is so close by

that one uninspired might almost see it. In truth, the

law of prophecy doth contradict the likelihoods, most
strangely making the difficult easy, and the easy
difficult."
was a wise head. A peasant's cap was no safe
It
disguise for it; you could know it for a king's under
a diving-bell, if you could hear it work its intellect.
I had a new trade now, and plenty of business in it.
The king was as hungry to find out everything that
was going to happen during the next thirteen cen-
turies as he were expecting to live in them. Prom
if

that time out, I prophesied myself bald-headed tr3dng

to supply the demand. I have done some indiscreet
things in my day, but this thing of playing myself
for a prophet was the worst. Still, it had its ameliora-
tions. A prophet doesn't have to have any brains.
They are good to have, of course, for the ordinary
exigencies of life, but they are no use in professional
work. It is the restfulest vocation there is. When
the spirit of prophecy comes upon you, you merely
cake your intellect and lay it off in a cool place for
a rest, and unship your jaw and leave it alone; it
will work itself: the result is prophecy.
Every day a knight-errant or so came along, and
the sight of them fired the king's martial spirit every
•11-;
time. He would have forgotten himself, sure, and
said something to them in a style a suspicious shade
or so above his ostensible degree, and so I always got
him well out of the road in time. Then he would
stand and look with all his eyes; and a proud light
270
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
would flash from them, and his nostrils would inflate
like a war-horse's, and I knew he was longing for a
brush with them. But about noon of the third day
I had stopped in the road to take a precaution which
had been suggested by the whip-stroke that had
fallen to my share two days before; a precaution
which I had afterward decided to leave untaken, I
was so loath to institute it but now I had just had
;

a fresh reminder: while striding heedlessly along,

with jaw spread and intellect at rest, for I was prophe-
sying, I stubbed my toe and fell sprawling. I was
so pale I cotddn't think for a moment; then I got
softly and carefully up and imstrapped my knapsack.
I had that dynamite bomb in it, done up in wool in a
box. It was a good thing to have along; the time
wovild come when I could do a valuable miracle with
it, maybe, but it was a nervous thing to have about

me, and I didn't like to ask the king to carry it.

Yet I must either throw it away or think up some
safe way to get along with its society. I got it out
and slipped it into my scrip, and just then here came
a couple of knights. The king stood, stately as a
—
statue, gazing toward them ^had forgotten himself
—
again, of course ^and before I could get a word of
warning out, it was time for him to skip, and well
that he did it, too. He supposed they would turn
aside. Turn aside to avoid trampling peasant dirt
imder foot? When had he ever ttimed aside himself
— or ever had the chance to do it, if a peasant saw
him or any other noble knight in time to judiciously
save him the trouble ? The knights paid no attention
to the king at all; it was his place to look out himself,
271
 MARK TWAIN
and he hadn't skipped he would have been placidly
if

ridden down, and laughed at besides.

The king was in a flaming fury, and launched out
his challenge and epithets with a most royal vigor.
The knights were some little distance by now. They
halted, greatly surprised, and turned in their saddles
and looked back, as if wondering if it might be worth
while to bother with such scum as we. Then they
wheeled and started for us. Not a moment must be
lost. I started for them. I passed them at a ratthng
gait, and as I went by I fltmg out a hair-lifting soul-
scorching thirteen-jointed insult which made the
king's effort poor and cheap by comparison. I got
it out of the nineteenth century where they know

how. They had such headway that they were nearly

to the king before they could check up then, frantic ;

with rage, they stood up their horses on their hind

hoofs and whirled them aroimd, and the next
moment here they came, breast to breast. I was
seventy yards off, then, and scrambling up a great
boulder at the roadside. When they were within
thirty yards of me they let their long lances droop
to a level, depressed their mailed heads, and so, with
their horse-hair plumes streaming straight out be-
hind, most gallant to see, this lightning express
came tearing for me! When they were within fif-
teen yards, I sent that bomb with a sure aim, and
it struck the ground under the horses' noses.
Yes, it was a neat thing, very neat and pretty
to see. resembled a steamboat explosion on the
It
Mississippi and during the next fifteen minutes we
;

stood under a steady drizzle of microscopic fragments

272
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
of knights and hardware and horse-flesh. I say we,
for the king joined the audience, of course, as soon
as he had got his breath again. There was a hole
there which would afford steady work for all the
people in that region for some years to come ^in —
trying to explain it, I mean; as for filling it up, that
service would be comparatively prompt, and would
fall to the lot of a select few —^peasants of that
seigniory; and they wouldn't get anything for it,

either.
But I explained it to the king myself. I said it was
done with a dynamite bomb. This information did
him no damage, because it left him as intelligent as
he was before. However, it was a noble miracle, in
his eyes, and was another settler for Merlin. I
thought it well enough to explain that this was a
miracle of so rare a sort that it couldn't be done
except when the atmospheric conditions were just
right. Otherwise he would be encoring it every time
we had a good subject, and that would be incon-
venient, because I hadn't any more bombs along.

a?3
 CHAPTER XXVIII
DRILLING THE KING

ON the morning of the fourth day, when

and we had been tramping an hour
just sunrise,
it was

in the chill dawn, I came to a resolution: the king

must be drilled; things could not go on so, he must
be taken in hand and deliberately and conscientiously
drilled, or we couldn't ever venture to enter a dwell-
ing; the very cats would know this masquerader
for a humbug and no peasant. So I called a halt and
said:
"Sire, as between clothes and coimtenance, you
no discrepancy; but as between
are all right, there is
your clothes and your bearing, you are all wrong,
there is a most noticeable discrepancy. Your sol-
dierly stride, your lordly port —
^these will not do.
You stand too straight, your looks are too high, too
confident. The cares of a kingdom do not stoop the
shoulders, they do not droop the chin, they do not
depress the high level of the eye-glance, they do not
put doubt and fear in the heart and hang out the
signs of them in slouching body and unsure step. It
is the sordid cares of the lowly born that do these

things. You must learn the trick; you must imitate

the trade-marks of poverty, misery, oppression, insult,
and the other several and common inhumanities that
274
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
sap the manliness out of a man and make him a loyal
and proper and approved subject and a satisfaction
to his masters, or the very infants will know you for
better than your disguise, and we shall go to pieces at
the first hut we stop at. Pray try to walk like this."

The king took careful note, and then tried an

imitation.
"Pretty fair—pretty fair. Chin a little lower,
please —
^there, very good. Eyes too high; pray don't
look at the horizon, look at the ground, ten steps in
—
front of you. Ah ^that is better, that is very good.
Wait, please; you betray too much ^ngOT, too much
decision; you want more of a shamble. Look at me,
please — what I mean.
^this is Now you are get-
. . .

ting it ; that the idea—

^at least, it sort of approaches
is

it. . Yes, that is pretty fair. But! There is a

. .

great big something wanting, I don't quite know what

it is. Please walk thirty yards, so that I can get
a perspective on the thing, Now, then ^youl . . .
—
head's right, speed's right, shoulders right, eyes right,
chin right, gait, carriage, general style right every- —
thing's right! And yet the fact remains, the aggre-
gate's wrong. The account don't balance. Do it
again, please . . . now I think I begin to see what it

is. Yes, I've struck it. You see, the genuine spirit-
lessness is wanting; that's what's the trouble. It's
all —
amateur ^mechanical details all right, almost to a
hair; everything about the delusion perfect, except
that it don't delude."
"What, then, must one do, to prevail?"
"Let me think. ... I can't seem to quite get at
it. In fact, there isn't anything that can right the
27S
 MARK TWAIN
matter but practice. This is a good place for it:
roots and stony ground to break up your stately gait,
a region not liable to interruption, only one field and
one hut in sight, and they so far away that nobody
could see us from there. It will be well to move a
little off the road and put in the whole day drilling

you, sire."
After the drill had gone on a little while, I said:
"Now, sire, imagine that we are at the door of the
hut yonder, and the family are before us. Proceed,
—
please accost the head of the house."
The king unconsciously straightened up like a
monument, and said, with frozen austerity:
" Varlet, bring a seat; and serve to me what cheer
ye have."
"Ah, your grace, that is not well done."
"Inwhatlackethit?"
"These people do not call each other varlets."
"Nay, is that true?"
"Yes; only those above them call them so."
"Then must I try again. I will call him villein."
"No-no; for he may be a freeman."
—
"Ah so. Then peradventure I should call him
goodman."
"That wotdd answer, your grace, but it would be
still better if you said friend, or brother."

"Brother!—to dirt like that?"

"Ah, but we are pretending to be dirt like that,
too."
"It is even true. I will say it. Brother, bring a
seat, and thereto what cheer ye have, withal. Now
'tis right."
276
 —
A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
"Not qiute, not wholly right. You have asked for
one, not us — ^for one, not both; food for one, a seat
for one."
The king looked puzzled —
^he wasn't a very heavy
weight, intellectually. His head was an hour-glass;
it could stow an idea, but it had to do it a grain at

a time, not the whole idea at once.

—
"Would you have a seat also and sit?"
"If I did not sit, the man wotild perceive that we
—
were only pretending to be equals and playing the
deception pretty poorly, too."
"It is well and truly said! How wonderful is
truth, come it in whatsoever tmexpected form it
may! Yes, he must bring out seats and food for
both, and in serving us present not ewer and napkin
with more show of respect to the one than to the
other."
"And there is even yet a detail that needs correct-
ing. He must bring nothing outside we will go in
;

in among the dirt, and possibly other repulsive things

—and take the food with the household, and after
the fashion of the house, and all on equal terms,
except the man be of the serf class; and finally, there
will be no ewer and no napkin, whether he be serf
or free. Please walk again, my liege. There ^it is —
—
better it is the best yet; but not perfect. The
shoulders have known no ignobler bturden than iron
mail, and they wiU not stoop."
"Give me, then, the bag. I will learn the spirit
that goeth with burdens that have not honor. It is
the spirit that stoopeth the shoulders, I ween, and
not the weight; for armor is heavy, yet it is a proud
277
 " :

MARK TWAIN
burden, and a man standeth straight in it. . . . Nay,
but me no buts, offer me no objections. I will have
the thing. Strap it upon my back."
He was
complete now with that knapsack on, and
looked as a king as any man I had ever seen.
little like

But it was an obstinate pair of shoulders they could ;

not seem to learn the trick of stooping with any sort

of deceptive naturalness. The driU went on, I
prompting and correcting
"Now, make believe you are in debt, and eaten up
by relentless creditors; you are out of work ^which —
is horse-shoeing, let us say —
and can get none; and
your wife is sick, yovir children are crying because
they are hungry
—
And so on, and so on. I drilled him as represent-
ing in turn all sorts and suffering
of people out of luck
dire privationsand misfortunes. But lord, it was only
—
just words, words ^they meant nothing in the world
to him, I might just as well have whistled. Words
realize nothing, vivify nothing to you, unless you
have suffered in your own person the thing which the
words try to describe. There are wise people who
talk ever so knowingly and complacently about "the
working classes," and satisfy themselves that a day's
hard intellectual work is very much harder than a
day's hard manual toil, and is righteously entitled to
much bigger pay. Why, they really think that, you
know, because they know all about the one, but
haven't tried the other. But I know aU about both;
and so far as I am concerned, there isn't money
enough in the universe to hire me to swing a pickax
thirty days, but I will do the hardest land of intel-
278
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
lectual work for just as near nothing as you can
cipher it —
down and I will be satisfied, too.
Intellectual "work" is misnamed; it is a pleasure,
a dissipation, and is its own highest reward. The
poorest paid architect, engineer, general, author,
sculptor, painter, lectvurer, advocate, legislator, actor,
preacher, singer is constructively in heaven when

he is at work and as for the musician with the fiddle-

;

bow in his hand who sits in the midst of a great

orchestra with the ebbing and flowing tides of divine
—
sound washing over him ^why, certainly, he is at
work, if you wish to call it that, but lord, it's a sar-
casm just the same. The law of work does seem
—
utterly unfair ^but there it is, and nothing can
change it: the higher the pay in enjoyment the
worker gets out of it, the higher shall be his pay in
cash, also. And it's also the very law of those trans-
parent swindles, transmissible nobiUty and kingship.

279
 CHAPTER XXIX
THE SMALLPOX HUT

WHEN
we
we arrived at that hut at mid-aftemoon,
saw np signs of life about it. The field
near by had been denuded of its crop some time be-
fore, and had a skinned look, so exhaustively had it
been harvested and gleanedv Fences, sheds, every-
thing had a ruined look, and were eloquent of pov-
erty. No animal was around anywhere, no living
thing in sight. The stillness was awful, it was like the
stillness of death. The cabin was a one-story one,
whose thatch was black with age, and ragged from
lack of repair.
The door stood a trifle ajar. We approached it

stealthily —on tiptoe and at half-breath— ^for that is

the way one's feeling makes him do, at such a time.

The king knocked. We waited. No answer.
Knocked
again. No pushed the door softly open
answer. I
and looked in. I made out some dim forms, and a
woman started up from the ground and stared at me,
as one does who is wakened from sleep. Presently
she found her voice:
"Have mercy!" she pleaded. "All i&taken, noth-
ing is left."

"I have not come to take anything, poor woman."

"You are not a priest?"
280
 —
A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
"No."
"Nor come not from the lord of the manor?"
"No, I am a stranger."
"Oh, then, for the fear of God, who visits with
misery and death such as be harmless, tarry not here,
but fly! This place is under his cturse and his —
Church's."
"Let me come in and help you —^you are sick and
in trouble."
I was better used to the dim light now. I could se«
her hoUow eyes fixed upon me. I could see ho^'
emaciated she was.
"I teU you the place is under the Chm-ch's ban,
—
Save yourself and go, before some straggler see thee
here,and report it."
"Give yourself no trouble about me; I don't care
anything for the Chttrch's curse. Let me help you."
—
"Now all good spirits ^if there be any such
bless thee for that' word. Would God I had a sup of
—
water! ^but hold, hold, forget I said it, and fly; for
there is that here that even he that feareth not the
Church must fear this disease whereof we die. Leave
:

us, thou brave, good stranger, and take with thee such
whole and sincere blessing as them that be accursed
can give."
But before this I had picked up a wooden bowl and
was rushing past the king on my way to the brook.
It was ten yards away. When I got back and
entered, the king was within, and was opening the
shutter that closed the window-hole, to let in air and
light. The place was full of a foul stench. I put the
bowl to the woman's Ups, and as she gripped it with
281
 : ! :

MARK TWAIN
her eager talons the shutter came open and a
strong light flooded her face. Smallpox
I sprang to the king, and said in his ear
"Out of the door on the instant, sire! the woman
is dying of that disease that wasted the skirts of

Camelot two years ago."

He did not budge.
"Of a truth I shall —and likewise help."
remain
I whispered again:
"King, must not be. You must go."
it

"Ye mean well, and ye speak not unwisely. But

it were shame that a king should know fear, and

shame that belted knight should withhold his hand

where be such as need succor. Peace, I will not go.
you who must go. The Church's ban is not upon
It is
me, but it forbiddeth you to be here, and she will
deal with you with a heavy hand an word come to
her of your trespass."
It was a desperate place for him to be in, and
might cost him his life, but it was no use to argue
with him. If he considered his knightly honor at
stake here, that was the end of argument; he would
stay, and nothing coidd prevent it; I was aware of
that. And so I dropped the subject. The woman
spoke
'

' Fair sir, of your kindness wiU ye climb the ladder

there, and bring me news of what ye find? Be not

afraid to report, for times can come when even a
mother's heart is past breaking — being already
broke."
"Abide," said the king, "and give the woman to
eat. I will go." And he put down the knapsack.
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
I turned to start, but the king had already started.
He halted, and looked down upon a man who lay in a
dim light, and had not noticed us thus far, or spoken.
"Is your husband?" the king asked.
it

"Yes."
"Is he asleep?"
"God be thanked for that one charity, yes — ^these
three hours. Where shall I pay to the full, my grati-
tude for ! my heart is btursting with it for that sleep
he sleepeth now."
I said:
"We will be careful. We will not wake him."
"Ah, no, that ye wiU not, for he is dead."
"Dead?"
"Yes, what triumph it is to know it! None can
harm him, none insult him more. He is in heaven
now, and happy; or if not there, he bides in hell and

iscontent for in that place he will find neither abbot

;

nor yet bishop. We were boy and girl together; we

were man and wife these five-and-twenty years, and
never separated tiU this day. Think how long that is
to love and suffer together. This morning was he out
of his mind, and in his fancy we were boy and girl
again and wandering in the happy fields; and so in
that innocent glad converse wandered he far and
farther, still and entered into those
lightly gossiping,
other fields we know not
and was shut away from
of,

mortal sight. And so there was no parting, for in his

fancy I went with him; he knew not but I went with
—
him, my hand in his my young soft hand, not this
withered claw. Ah. yes, to go, and know it not; to
separate and know it not; how could one go peace-
283
 MARK TWAIN
fuler than that? It was his reward for a cruel life

patiently borne."
There was a slight noisefrom the direction of the
dim comer where the ladder was. It was the king
descending. I could see that he was bearing some-
thing in one arm, and assisting himself with the other.
He came forward into the light upon his breast lay a
;

slender girl of fifteen. She was but half conscious;

she was dying of smallpox. Here was heroism at its
last and loftiest possibility, its utmost summit; this
was challenging death in the open field unarmed, with
all the odds against the challenger, no reward set upon

the contest, and no admiring world in silks and cloth-

of-gold to gaze and applaud and yet the king's bear-
;

ing was as serenely brave as it had always been in

those cheaper contests where knight meets knight
in equal fight and clothed in protecting steel. He
was great now; sublimely great. The rude statues
oi his ancestors in his palace should have an addition
— I woidd see to that; and it would not be a mailed
king killing a giant or a dragon, like the rest, it would
be a king in commoner's garb bearing death in his
arms that a peasant mother might look her last upon
her child and be comforted.
He laid the girl down by her mother, who poured
out endearments and caresses from an overflowing
heart, and one could detect a flickering faint light of
response in the child's eyes, but that was all. The
mother himg over her, kissing her, petting her, and
imploring her to speak, but the lips only moved and
no sound came. I snatched my liquor flask from
my knapsack, but the woman forbade me, and said;
284
 : "

A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
"No —she does not suffer; it is better so. It
might bring her back to life. None that be so good
and kind as ye are woxild do her that cruel hurt. For
look you —^what is left to live for? Her brothers are
gone, her father is gone, her mother goeth, the
Church's curse is upon her, and none may shelter or
befriend her even though she lay perishing in the
road. She is desolate. I have not asked you, good
heart, if her sister be still on live, here overhead; I
had no need; ye had gone back, else, and not left the
poor thing forsaken
—
"She lieth at peace," interrupted the king, in a
subdued voice.
"I would not change it. How rich is this day in
happiness ! Ah, my Annis, thou shalt join thy sister
soon—thou'rt on thy way, and these be merciful
friends that will not hinder."
And fell to murmuring and cooing over the
so she
girl again,and softly stroking her face and hair, and
kissing her and calling her by endearing names but ;

there was scarcely sign of response now in the glazing

eyes. I saw tears well from the king's eyes, and
trickle down his face. The woman noticed them, too,
and said
"Ah, I know that sign: thou'st a wife at home,
poor sotd, and you and she have gone hungry to bed,
many's the time, that the little ones might have your
crust; you know what poverty is, and the daily
insults of your betters, and the heavy hand of the
Church and the king."
The king winced under this accidental home-shot,
but kept still; he was learning his part; and he was
28s
 " —
MARK TWAIN
playing it well, a pretty dull beginner. I
too, for
struck up a diversion. woman food and
I offered the
liquor, but she refused both. She would allow noth-
ing to come between her and the release of death.
Then I slipped away and brought the dead child from
aloft, and laid it by her. This broke her down again,
and there was another scene that was full of heart-
break. By and by I made another diversion, and
beguiled her to sketch her story.
"Ye know it well yourselves, having suffered it
for tnily none of our condition in Britain escape it.
It is the old, weary tale. We fought and struggled
and succeeded; meaning by success, that we lived
and did not die; more than that is not to be claimed.
No troubles came that we could not outlive, till this
year brought them; then came they all at once, as
one might say, and overwhelmed us. Years ago the
lord of the manor planted certain fruit-trees on our
—
farm; in the best part of it, too a grievous wrong
—
and shame
"But it was his right," interrupted the king.
"None denieth that, indeed; an the law mean any-
thing, what is the lord's is his, and what is mine is
his also. Our farm was ours by lease, therefore 'twas
likewise his, to do with it as he wotild. Some little
time ago, three of those trees were found hewn
down. Our three grown sons ran frightened to
report the crime. Well, in his lordship's dungeon
there they lie, who saith there shall they lie and rot
till they confess. They have naught to confess,
being innocent, wherefore there will they remain
until they die. Ye know that right well, I ween.
286
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
Think how a man, a woman, and two
this left us;
children, to gather a crop that was planted by so
much greater force, yes, and protect it night and day
from pigeons and prowling animals that be sacred
and must not be hurt by any of our sort. When my
lord's crop was nearly ready for the harvest, so also
was ours when his bell rang to call us to his fields to
;

harvest his crop for nothing, he would not allow that

I and my two girls should count for our three captive
sons, but for only two of them so, for the lacking one
;

were we daily fined. All this time our own crop

was perishing through neglect; and so both the
priest and his lordship fined us because their shares
of were suffering through damage. In the end the
it

fines ate up our crop —

and they took it aU; they
took it all and made us harvest it for them, without
pay or food, and we starving. Then the worst came
when I, being out of my mind with hunger and loss
of my boys, and grief to see my husband and my
little maids in rags and misery and despair, uttered a

—
deep blasphemy oh! a thousand of them! against —
the Church and the Church's ways. It was ten days
ago. I had fallen sick with this disease, and it was
to the priest I said the words, for he was come to
chide me for lack of due humility under the chasten-
ing hand of God. He carried my trespass to his
betters; I was stubborn; wherefore, presently upon
my head and upon all heads that were dear to me,
fell the curse of Rome.
"Since that day we are avoided, shunned with
horror. None has come near this hut to know
whether we live or not. The rest of us were taken
287
 "

MARK TWAIN
down. Then I roused me and got up, as wife and
mother will. It was Httle they could have eaten
in any case; it was less than little they had to eat.
But there was water, and I gave them that. How
they craved it! and how they blessed it! But the
end came yesterday; my strength broke down.
Yesterday was the last time I ever saw my husband
and this youngest child alive. I have lain here all
—
——
these hours ^these ages, ye may say Glistening,
listening for any sound up there that
She gave a sharp quick glance at her eldest
daughter, then cried out, "Oh, my darling!" and
feebly gathered the stiffening form to her sheltering
arms. She had recognized the death-rattle.

288
 CHAPTER XXX
THE TRAGEDY OF THE MANOR-HOUSE

AT midnight all was over, and we sat in the

2\ presence of four corpses. We covered them
with such rags as we could and started away,
find,
fastening the door behind us. Their home must be
these people's grave, for they could not have Chris-
tian burial, or be admitted to consecrated ground.
They were as- dogs, wild beasts, lepers, and no soul
that valued its hope of eternal Ufe would throw it
away by meddling in any sort with these rebuked
and smitten outcasts.
We had not moved four steps when I caught a
sound as of footsteps upon gravel. My heart flew
to my throat. We must not be seen coming from
that house. I plucked at the king's robe and we
drew back and took shelter behind the comer of the
cabin.
"Now we are safe," I said, "but it was a close
call —so to speak.the night had been lighter he
If
might have seen us, no doubt, he seemed to be
so near."
"Mayhap it is but a beast and not a man at all."
"True. But man or beast, it will be wise to stay
here a minute and let it get by and out of the way."
"Hark! It cometh hither."
289
 : " —
MARK TWAIN
True again. The step was coming toward us
straight toward the hut. It must be a beast, then,
and we might as well have saved our trepidation.
I was going to step out, but the king laid his hand
apon my arm. There was a moment of silence, then
we heard a soft knock on the cabin door. It made me
shiver. Presently the knock was repeated, and then
we heard these words in a guarded voice:
Mother Father
'
' ! !
—
Open ^we have got free, and
we bring news to pale your cheeks but glad your
hearts; and we may not tarry, but must fly! And
— ^but they answer not. Mother! father!
—
I drew the Idng toward the other end of the hut
and whispered
—
"Come ^now we can get to the road."
The king hesitated, was going to demur; but just
then we heard the door give way, and knew that
those desolate men were in the presence of their
dead.
"Come, my liege! in a moment they will strike a
light, and then will follow that which it would break
your heart to hear."
He did not hesitate this time. The moment we
were in the road I ran and after a moment he threw
;

dignity aside and followed. I did not want to think

of —
what was happening in the hut I couldn't bear
it; I wanted to drive it out of my mind; so I struck

into the first subject that lay under that one in my

mind:
"I have had the disease those people died of, and
so have nothing to fear; but if you have not had it
also—"
290
 " :

A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
He
broke in upon me to say he was in trouble, and
itwas his conscience that was troubling him
"These young men have got free, they say ^but —
how? It is not likely that their lord hath set them
free."
"Oh, no, I make no doubt they escaped."
"That is my trouble; I have a fear that this is so,
and your suspicion doth confirm it, you having the
same fear."
"I should not call it by that name though. I do
suspect that they escaped, but if they did, I am not
sorry, certainly."
"I am not sorry, I think — —
^but
'
' What is it ? What is there for one
to be troubled
about?"
"If they did escape, then are we botmd in duty to
lay hands upon them and deliver them again to their
lord; for it is not seemly that one of his quality
should suffer a so insolent and high-handed outrage
from persons of their base degree."
There it was again. He could see only one side
of it. He was bom so, educated so, his veins were
full of ancestral blood that was rotten with this sort
of unconscious brutality, brought down by inherit-
ance from a long procession of hearts that had each
done its share toward poisoning the stream. To
imprison these men without proof, and starve their
kindred, was no harm, for they were merely peasants
and subject to the will and pleasure of their lord, no
matter what fearful form it might take; but for
these men to break out of unjust captivity was
insult and outrage, and a thing not to be counte-
291
 MARK TWAIN
nanced by any conscientious person who knew his
duty to his sacred caste.
I worked more than half an hour before I got him
—
to change the subject and even then an outside
matter did it for me. This was a something which
caught our eyes as we struck the summit of a small
hill —a red glow, a good way off.
"That's afire," said I.
Fires interested me considerably, because I was
getting a good deal of an insurance business started,
and was also training some horses and building some
steam fire-engines, with an eye to a paid fire depart-
ment by and by. The priests opposed both my fire
and life insurance, on the ground that it was an
insolent attempt to hinder the decrees of God; and
if you pointed out that they did not hinder the de-
crees in the least,but only modified the hard conse-
quences of them if you took out policies and had luck,
they retorted that that was gambling against the
decrees of God, and was just as bad. So they man-
aged to damage those industries more or less, but I
got even on my Accident business. As a rule, a
knight is a lummox, and sometimes even a labrick,
and hence open to pretty poor arguments when
they come glibly from a superstition-monger, but
even he could see the practical side of a thing once
in a while; and so of late you couldn't clean up a
tournament and pile the result without finding one
of my accident-tickets in every helmet.
We stood there awhile, in the thick darkness and
stiUness, looking toward the red blur in the dis-
tance, and trying to make out the meaning of a far-
292
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
away murmur that rose and fell fitfullyon the night.
Sometimes it swelled up and for a moment seemed
less remote; but when we were hopefully expecting
it to betray its cause and nature, it dulled and sank

again, carrying its mystery with it. We started

down the hill in its direction, and the winding road
pltmged us at once into almost solid darkness dark- —
ness that was packed and crammed in between two
tail forest walls. We groped along down for half a
mile, perhaps, that murmur growing more and more
distinct all the time, the coming storm threatening
more and more, with now and then a little shiver of
wind, a faint show of lightning, and dull grumblings
of distant thunder. I was in the lead. I ran against

—
something a soft heavy something which gave,
slightly, to the impulse of my weight; at the same
moment the lightning glared out, and within a foot
of my face was the writhing face of a man who was
hanging from the limb of a tree! That is, it seemed
to be writhing, but it was not. It was a gruesome
sight. Straightway there was an ear-splitting ex-

plosion of thunder, and the bottom of heaven fell

out; the rain poured down in a deluge. No matter,
we must try to cut this man down, on the chance
that there might be life in him yet, mustn't we ? The
lightning came quick and sharp now, and the place
was alternately noonday and midnight. One mo-
ment the man would be hanging before me in an
intense light, and the next he was blotted out again
in the darkness. I told the king we must cut him

down. The king at once objected.

"If he hanged himself, he was willing to lose hin*
293
 MARK TWAIN
property to his lord; so let him be. If others hanged
him, beUke they had the right ^let — him hang."
"But—"
"But me no buts, but even leave him as he is.

And for yet another reason. When the lightning

Cometh again — there, look abroad."
Two others hanging, within fifty yards of us!
"It isnot weather meet for doing useless cour-
tesies unto dead folk. They are past thanking you.
Come — ^it is unprofitable to tarry here."
There was reason in what he said, so we moved
on. Within the next mile we counted six more hang-
ing forms by the blaze of the lightning, and alto-
gether it was a grisly excursion. That murmur was
a murmur no longer, it was a roar; a roar of men's
voices. A man came flying by now, dimly through
the darkness, and other men chasing him. They dis-
appeared. Presently another case of the kind oc-
curred, and then another and another. Then a
sudden ttum of the road brought us in sight of that
—
fire ^it was a large manor-house, and little or noth-

—
ing was left of it and everywheTe men were fljHtng
and other men raging after them in pursuit.
I warned the king that this was not a safe place
for strangers. We would better get away from the
light, tmtil matters should improve. We stepped
back a little, and hid in the edge of the wood. Frorri
this hiding-place we saw both men and women
hunted by the mob. The fearfvxl work went on until
nearly dawn. Then, the fire being out and the
storm spent, the voices and flying footsteps present-
ly ceased, and darkness and stillness reigned again
2Q4
 ;

A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
We venttired out, and hxuried cautiously away;
and although we were worn out and sleepy, we kept
on until we had put this place some miles behind us.
Then we asked hospitality at the hut of a charcoal-
burner, and got what was to be had. A woman
was up and about, but the man was stiU asleep, on a
straw shake-down, on the clay floor. The woman
seemed uneasy imtil I explained that we were
travelers and had lost our way and been wandering
in the woods aU night. She became talkative, then,
and asked if we had heard of the terrible goings-on
at the manor-house of Abblasoure. Yes, we had
heard of them, but what we wanted now was rest
and sleep. The king broke in:
"Sell us the house and take yourselves away, for
we be perilous company, being late come from people
that died of the Spotted Death."
It was good of him, but tmnecessary. One of the
commonest decorations of the nation was the waffle-
iron face. I had early noticed that the woman and
her husband were both so decorated. She made us
entirely welcome, and had no fears; and plainly she
was immensely impressed by the king's proposition
for, of cotirse, it was a good deal of an event in her

life to run across a person of the king's humble ap-

pearance who was ready to buy a man's house for

the sake of a night's lodging. It gave her a large
respect for us, and she strained the lean possibilities
of her hovel to the utmost to make us comfortable.
We slept till far into the afternoon, and then got
up hungry enough to make cotter fare quite palat-
able to the king, the more particularly as it was
29S
 MARK TWAIN
scant in quantity. And also in variety ; it consisted
solely of onions, salt, and the national black bread
—^made out of horse-feed. The woman told us
about the affair of the evening before. At ten or
eleven at night, when everybody was in bed, the
manor-house burst into flames. The country-side
swarmed to the rescue, and the family were saved,
with one exception, the master. He did not appear.
Everybody was frantic over this loss, and two brave
yeomen sacrificed their Hves in ransacking the
burning house seeking that valuable personage.
—
But after a while he was found ^what was left of
—
him which was his corpse. It was in a copse three
htmdred yards away, bound, gagged, stabbed in a
dozen places.
Who had done this ? Suspicion fell upon a humble
family in the neighborhood who had been lately
treated with pecuHar harshness by the baron; and
from these people the suspicion easily extended itself
to their relatives and familiars. A suspicion was
enough; my lord's liveried retainers proclaimed an
instant crusade against these people, and were
promptly joined by the community in general. The
woman's husband had been active with the mob, and
had not retiuned home until nearly dawn. He was
gone now to find out what the general result had
been. While we were stUl talking he came back
from his quest. His report was revolting enough.
Eighteen persons hanged or butchered, and two
yeomen and thirteen prisoners lost in the fire.
"And how many prisoners were there altogether
in the vaults?"
296
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
"Thirteen."
"Then every one of them was lost?"
"Yes, aU."
"But the people arrived in time to save the family;
how is it they could save none of the prisoners?"
The man looked ptizzled, and said:
"Would one unlock the vaults at such a time?
Marry, some would have escaped."
"Then you mean that nobody did tmlock them?"
"None went near them, either to lock or unlock.
It standeth to reason that the bolts were fast;
wherefore it was only needful to establish a watch,
so that if any broke the bonds he might not escape,
but be taken. None were taken."
"Natheless, three did escape," said the king,
"and ye will do well to publish it and set justice
upon their track, for these murthered the baron and
fired the house."
I was just expecting he would come out with that.
For a moment the man and his wife showed an
eager interest in this news and an impatience to go
out and spread it; then a sudden something else be-
trayed itself in their faces, and they began to ask
questions. I answered the questions myself, and
narrowly watched the effects produced. I was soon
satisfied that the knowledge of who these three
prisoners were had somehow changed the atmos-
phere; that ovu- hosts' continued eagerness to go and
spread the news was now only pretended and not
real. The king did not notice the change, and I was
glad of that. I worked the conversation arotmd
toward other details of the night's proceedings, and
297
 MARK TWAIN
noted that these people were relieved to have it take
that direction.
The painful thing observable about all this busi-
ness was the alacrity with which this oppressed
community had tiumed their cruel hands against
their own class in the interest of thecommon op-
pressor. This man and woman seemed to feel that
in a quarrel between a person of their own class and
his lord, it was the natural and proper and rightful
thing for that poor devil's whole caste to side with
the master and fight his battle for him, without ever
stopping to inquire into the rights or wrongs of the
matter. man had been out helping to hang his
This
neighbors, and had done his work with zeal, and yet
was aware that there was nothing against them but
a mere suspicion, with nothing back of it describable
as evidence, still neither he nor his wife seemed to
see anything horrible about it.

This was depressing —man with the dream of

^to a
a republic in reminded me of a time
his head. It
thirteen centuries away, when the "poor whites" of
our South who were always despised and frequently
insulted by the slave-lords around them, and who
owed their base condition simply to the presence of
slavery in their midst, were yet pusillanimously
ready to side with the slave-lords in all political
moves for the upholding and perpetuating of slavery,
and did also finally shoulder their muskets and pour
out their lives in an effort to prevent the destruction
which degraded them. And
of that very institution
therewas only one redeeming feature connected with
that pitiful piece of history; and that was, that
298
 :

A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
secretly the "poor white" did detest the slave-lord,
and did own shame. That feeling was not
feel his
brought to the surface, but the fact that it was there
and could have been brought out, under favoring
—
circumstances, was something ^in fact, it was
enough; for it showed that a man is at bottom a
man, after all, even if it doesn't show on the outside.
Well, as it turned out, this charcoal-burner was
just the twin of the Southern "poor white" of the
far future. The king presently showed impatience,
and said:
"An ye prattle here all the day, justice will mis-
carry. Think ye the criminals will abide in their
father's house? They are fleeing, they are not wait-
ing. You should look to it that a party of horse
be set upon their track."
The woman paled slightly, but quite perceptibly,
and the man looked flustered and irresolute. I said
"Come, friend, I will walk a little way with you,
and explain which direction I think they would try
to take. they were merely resisters of the gabelle
If
or some kindred absurdity I would try to protect
them from capture; but when men murder a person
of high degree and likewise bum his house, that is
another matter."
—
The last remark was for the king to quiet him.
On the road the man pulled his resolution together,
and began the march with a steady gait, but there
was no eagerness in it. By and by I said:
"What relation were these men to you cousins?"—
He turned as white as his layer of charcoal would
let him, and stopped, trembling.
299
 :

MARK TWAIN
"Ah, my God, how know ye that?"
"I didn't know it; it was a chance guess.*'
"Poor lads, they are lost. And good lads they
were, too."
"Were you actually going yonder to tell on them?"
He didn't quite know how to take that; but he
said, hesitatingly:
"Ye-s."
"Then I think you are a damned scoundrel!"
Itmade him as glad as if I had called him an
angel.
"Say the good words again, brother! for surely
ye mean that ye would not betray me an I failed of
my duty."
"Duty? There is no duty in the matter, except
the duty to keep still and let those men get away.
They've done a righteous deed."
He looked pleased; pleased, and touched with
apprehension at the same time. He looked up and
down the road to see that no one was coming, and
then said in a cautious voice
"From what land come you, brother, that you
speak such perilous words, and seem not to be
afraid?"
"They are not perilous words when spoken to one
of my own caste, I take it. You would not teU
anybody them?"
I said
"I? I would be drawn asunder by wild horses
first."
"Well, then, say my say. I have no fears
let me
of your repeating think devil's work has been
it. I
done last night upon those innocent poor people.
300
 :

A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
That old baron got only what he deserved. If I
had my way, all his kind should have the same luck."
Fear and depression vanished from the man's
manner, and gratefulness and a brave animation
took their place
"Even though you be a spy, and your words a
trap for my undoing, yet are they such refreshment
that to hear them again and others like to them, I
would go to the gallows happy, as having had one
good feast at least in a starved life. And I will say
my say now, and ye may report it if ye be so minded.
I helped to hang my neighbors for that it were peril
to my own life to show lack of zeal in the master's
cause; the others helped for none other reason. All
rejoice to-day that he is dead, but all do go about
seemingly sorrowing, and shedding the hypocrite's
tear, for in that lies safety. I have said the words,
I have said the words! the only ones that have ever
tasted good in my mouth, and the reward of that
taste is sufficient. Lead on, an ye will, be it even
to the scaffold, for I am ready."
^ There it was, you see. A man is a man, at
bottom. Whole ages of abuse and oppression can-
not crush the manhood clear out of him. Whoever
thinks it a mistake is himself mistaken. Yes,
there is plenty good enough material for a republic
in the most degraded people that ever existed even —
the Russians; plenty of manhood in them even in —
—
the Germans ^if one could but force it out of its
timid and suspicious privacy, to overthrow and
trample in the mud any throne that ever was set up
and any nobility that ever supported it. We should
301
 MARK TWAIN
see eertain things yet, let us hope and believe. First,
a modified monarchy, till Arthur's days were done,
then the destruction of the throne, nobility abol-
ished, every member of it bound out to some useful
and the whole
trade, universal suffrage instituted,
government placed in the hands of the men and
women of the nation there to remain. Yes, there
was no occasion to give up my dream yet a while.

302
 CHAPTER XXXI
MARCO

WE strolled along in a sufficiently indolent

fashion now, and talked. We must dispose of
about the amount of time it ought to take to go to the
little hamlet of Abblasoure and put justice on the

track of those murderers and get back home again.

And meantime I had an auxiliary interest which had
never paled yet, never lost its novelty for me since
I had been in Arthur's kingdom the behavior
:
—
^bom
—
of nice and exact subdivisions of caste of chance
passers-by toward each other. Toward the shaven
monk who trudged along with his cowl tilted back
and the sweat washing down his fat jowls, the coal-
burner was deeply reverent to the gentleman he was
;

abject with the small farmer and the free mechanic

;

he was cordial and gossipy; and when a slave passed

by with a countenance respectftdly lowered, this
—
chap's nose was in the air ^he couldn't even see him.
WeU, there are times when one would like to hang
the whole human race and finish the farce.
Presently we struck an incident. A
small mob of
half-naked boys and girls came tearing out of the
woods, scared and shrieking. The eldest among
them were not more than twelve or fourteen years
old. They implored help, but they were so beside
303
 — ;

MARK TWAIN
themselves that we couldn't make out what the
matter was. However, we plunged into the wood,
they scurrying in the lead, and the trouble was
quickly revealed: they had hanged a little fellow

with a bark rope, and he was kicking and struggling,

in the process of choking to death. We rescued him,
and fetched him around. It was some more human
nature the admiring little folk imitating their elders
;

they were playing mob, and had achieved a success

which promised to be a good deal more serious than
they had bargained for.
It was not a dull excursion for me. I managed to
put in the Lime very well. I made various acquaint-
anceships, and in my quality of stranger was able to
ask as many questions as I wanted to. A thing which
naturally interested me, as a statesman, was the
matter of wages. I picked up what I coiild under
that head during the afternoon. A man who hasn't
had much experience, and doesn't think, is apt to
measiure a nation's prosperity or lack of prosperity by
the mere size of the prevailing wages; if the wages

be high, the nation, is prosperous; if low, it isn't.

Which is an error. It isn't what sum you get, it's
how much you can buy with it, that's the important
thing and it's that that tells whether your wages are
;

high in fact or only high in name. I could remember

how it was in the time of our great civil war in the
nineteenth century. In the North a carpenter got
three dollars a day, gold valuation; in the South he
—
got fifty payable in Confederate shinplasters worth
a dollar a bushel. In the North a suit of overalls cost
three dollars a day's wages; in the South it cost
30^
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
seventy-five —which was two days' wages.
Other
things were in proportion. Consequently, wages
were twice as high in the North as they were in the
South, because the one wage had that much more
purchasing power than the other had.
Yes, I made various acquaintances in the hamlet,
and a thing that gratified me a good deal was to find
—
our new coins in circulation ^lots of milrays, lots of
mills, lots of cents, a good many nickels, and some
silver; all this among the artisans and commonalty
generally ;
yes, and even some gold —^but that was at
the bank, that is to say, the goldsmith's. I dropped
in there while Marco, the son of Marco, was haggling
with a shopkeeper over a quarter of a pound of salt,
and asked for change for a twenty-dollar gold piece.
—
They furnished it that is, after they had chewed the
piece, and rung it on the counter, and tried acid on
it, and asked me where I got it, and who I was, and

where I was from, and where I was going to, and

when I expected to get there, and perhaps a couple of
hundred more questions; and when they got aground,
I went right on and furnished them a lot of infor-

mation voltmtarily; told them I owned a dog, and

his name was Watch, and my first wife was a Free
Will Baptist, and her grandfather was a Prohibi-
tionist, and I used to know a man who had two
thumbs on each hand and a wart on the inside of his
upper lip, and died in the hope of a glorious resurrec-
tion, and so on, and so on, and so on, till even that
hungry began to look satisfied, and
village questioner
also a shade put out but he had to respect a man of
;

my financial strength, and so he didn't give me any

30s
 MARK TWAIN
lip, but I noticed he took it out of his underlings,
which was a perfectly natxiral thing to do. Yes, they
changed my twenty, but I judged it strained the bank
a little, which was a thing to be expected, for it was
the same as walking into a paltry village store in the
nineteenth century and requiring the boss of it to
change a two-thousand-doUar bill for you all of a
sudden. He could do it, maybe; but at the same
time he would wonder how a small farmer happened
to be carrying so much money around in his pocket;
which was probably this goldsmith's thought, too;
for he followed me to the door and stood there gazing
after me with reverent admiration.
Our new money was not only handsomely circu-
lating, but its language was already glibly in use;
that is to say, people had dropped the names of the
former moneys, and spoke of things as being worth
so many dollars or cents or mills or milrays now.
Itwas very gratifying. We were progressing, that
was sure.
I got to know several master mechanics, but about
the most interesting feUow among them was the
blacksmith, Dowley. He was a live man and a
brisk talker, and had two journeymen and three
apprentices, and was doing a raging business. In
fact, he was getting rich, hand over fist, and was
vastly respected. Marco was very proud of having
such a man for a friend. He had taken me there os-
tensibly to let me see the big establishment which
bought so much of his charcoal, but really to let me
seewhat easy and almost familiar terms he was on
with this great man. Dowley and I fraternized at
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 :

A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
once; I had had just such picked men, splendid
fellows, under me in the Colt Arms Factory. I was
bound to see more of him, so I invited him to come
out to Marco's Simday, and dine with us. Marco
was appalled, and held his breath; and when the
grandee accepted, he was so grateful that he almost
forgot to be astonished at the condescension.
—
Marco's joy was exuberant ^but only for a mo-
ment; then he grew thoughtful, then sad; and when
he heard me tell Dowley I should have Dickon, the
boss mason, and Smug, the boss wheelwright, out
there, too, the coal-dust on his face turned to chalk,
and he lost his grip. But I knew what was the mat-
ter with him; it was the expense. He saw rain before
him; he judged that his financial days were ntmi-
bered. However, on oiir way to invite the others, I
said:
"You must allow me to have these friends come;
and you must also allow me to pay the costs."
His face cleared, and he said with spirit
"But not all of it, not all of it. Ye cannot well
bear a burden Kke to this alone."
I stopped him, and said:
"Now let's understand each other on the spot,
old friend. I am only a farm bailiff, it is true; but
I amnot poor, nevertheless. I have been very for-
—
tunate this year ^you would be astonished to know
how I have thriven. I tell you the honest truth when
I say I coiild squander away as many as a dozen
feasts like this and never care that for the expense!"
and I snapped my fingers. I could see myself rise a
foot at a time in Marco's estimation, and when I

307
 " — "

MARK TWAIN
fetched out those last words I was become a very
tower for style and altitude. "So you see, you must
let me have my way. You can't contribute a cent to
this orgy, that's settled."
and good of you
"It's grand
—
"No, it isn't. You've opened your house to Jones
and me in the most generous way Jones was remark-
;

ing upon it to-day, just before you came back from

the village; for although he wouldn't be likely to say
such a thing to you —because Jones a isn't talker,and
is diffident in society— has a good heart
^he and a
grateful, and knows how to appreciate it when he is
well treated; yes, you and yoiu: wife have been very
hospitable toward us
—
"Ah, brother, 'tis nothing such hospitality!"
"But it is something; the best a man has, freely
given, is always something, and is as good as a prince
can do, and ranks right along beside it ^for even a —
prince can but do his best. And so we'll shop around
and get up this layout now, and don't you worry
about the expense. I'm one of the worst spendthrifts
that ever was bom. Why, do you know, sometimes
—
in a single week I spend ^but never mind about that
' —
^you'd never believe it anyway."
And so we went gadding along, dropping in here
and there, pricing things, and gossiping with the
shopkeepers about the riot, and now and then nm-
tiing across pathetic reminders of it, in the persons of
shunned and tearful and houseless remnants of fami-
lies whose homes had been taken from them and

their parents butchered or hanged. The raiment of

Marco and his wife was of coarse tow-linen and linsey-
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 " "

A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
woolsey respectively, and resembled township maps,
it being made up pretty exclusively of patches which

had been added, township by township, in the course

of five or six years, until hardly a hand's-breadth of
the original garments was surviving and present.
Now I wanted to fit these people out with new stiits,
on account of that swell company, and I didn't know
just how to get at it with delicacy, until at last it
struck me that as I had already been liberal in
inventing wordy gratitude for the king, it would be
just the thing to back it up with evidence of a sub-
stantial sort; so I said:
"And Marco, there's another thing which you
—
must permit out of kindness for Jones ^because you—
wouldn't want to offend him. He was very anxious
to testify his appreciation in some way, but he is so
diffident he couldn't, venttu-e it himself, and so he
begged me to buy some little things and give them to
you and Dame Phyllis and let him pay for them with-
out your ever knowing they came from him ^you —
know how a delicate person feels about that sort of
thing—and so I said I would, and we would keep
mum. Well, his idea was, a new outfit of clothes for
you both—
"Oh, it is wastefulness! It may
not be, brother,
it may not be. Consider the vastness of the sum
—
'
Hang the vastness of the sum Try to keep quiet
' !

for a moment, and see how it would seem; a body

can't get in a word edgeways, you talk so much. You
ought to cure that, Marco; it isn't good form, you
know, and it will grow on you if you don't check it.
Yes, we'll step in here now and price this man's stuft
30Q
 MARK TWAIN
—and don't forget to remember to not let on to Jones
that you know he had anything to do with it. You
can't think how curiously sensitive and proud he is.
He's a farmer — ^pretty fairly well-to-do farmer —and
I'm his bailiff; but —the imagination of that man!
Why, sometimes when he forgets himself and gets to
blowing off, you'd think he was one of the swells of
the earth; and you might listen to him a hundred
years and never take him for a farmer —especially if

he talked agriculture. He thinks he's a Sheol of a

farmer; thinks he's old Grayback from Wayback;
but between you and me privately he don't know as
much about farming as he does about nmning a king-
—
dom still, whatever he talks about, you want to
drop yoiur under-jaw and listen, the same as if you
had never heard such incredible wisdom in all your
life before, and were afraid you might die before you

got enough of it. That will please Jones."

It tickled Marco to the marrow to hear about such
an odd character; but it also prepared him for acci-
dents ; and in my experience when you travel with a
king who is on to be something else and can't
letting
remember it more than about half the time, you can't
take too many precautions.
This was the best store we had come across yet;
it had everything in it, in small quantities, from

anvils and dry-goods all the way down to fish and

pinchbeck jewelry. I concluded I would bunch my
whole invoice right here, and not go pricing around
any more. So I got rid of Marco, by sending him
off to invite the mason and the wheelwright, which
left the field free to me. For I never care to do a
310
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
thing in a quiet way; it's got to be theatrical or I
don't take any interest in it. I showed up money
enough, in a careless way, to corral the shopkeeper's
respect, and then I wrote down a list of the things I
wanted, and handed it to him to see if he could read
it. He could, and was proud to show that he could.
He said he had been educated by a priest, and could
both read and write. He ran it through, and re-
marked with satisfaction that it was a pretty heavy
bill. Well, and so it was, for a little concern like that.
I was not only providing a swell dinner, but some
odds and ends of extras. I ordered that the things
be carted out and delivered at the dwelling of Marco,
the son of Marco, by Saturday evening, and send me
the bill at dinner-time Sunday. He said I could de-
pend upon his promptness and exactitude, it was the
rule of the house. He also observed that he would
throw in a couple of miller-guns for the Marcos
gratis — ^that everybody was using them now. He
had a mighty opinion of that clever device. I
said:
"And please fill them up to the middle mark, too;
and add that to the bill."
He would, with pleasure. He filled them, and I
took them with me. I couldn't venture to tell him
that the rmller-gun was a little invention of my own,
and that I had officially ordered that every shop-
keeper in the kingdom keep them on hand and sell
—
them at government price ^which was the merest
trifle, and the shopkeeper got that, not the govern-

ment. We furnished them for nothing.

The king had hardly missed us when we got back
3"
 MARK TWAIN
at nightfall. He had early dropped again into his
dream of a grand invasion of Gaul with the v/hole
strength of his kingdom at his back, and the afternoon
had slipped away without his ever coming to himself
again.

312
 CHAPTER XXXII
DOWLEY'S HUMILIATION

WELL, when that cargo arrived toward sunset,

Saturday afternoon, had
hands full to
I my
keep the Marcos from fainting. They were sure
Jones and I were ruined past help, and they blamed
themselves as accessories to this bankruptcy. You
addition to the dinner materials, which called
see, in
for a sufficiently round sum, I had bought a lot of
extras for the future comfort of the family: for in-
stance, a big lot of wheat, a delicacy as rare to the
tables of their class aswas ice-cream to a hermit's;
also a sizable deal dinner-table; also two entire
pounds of salt, which was another piece of extrava-
gance in those people's eyes; also crockery, stools,
the clothes, a small cask of beer, and so on. I in-
structed the Marcos to keep quiet about this sumptu-
ousness, so as to give me a chance to surprise the
guests and show off a Uttle. Concerning the new
clothes, the simple couple were Uke children; they
were up and down, all night, to see if it wasn't nearly
daylight, so that they could put them on, and they
were into them at last as much as an hour before
dawn was due. Then their pleasure —^not to say
delirium —was so fresh and novel and inspiring that
the sight of it paid me well for the interruptions which
313
 MARK TWAIN
my sleep had suffered. The long had slept just as
usual —^like the dead. The Marcos could not thank
him for their clothes, that being forbidden; but they
tried every way they could think of to make him
see how grateful they were. Which all went for
nothing: he didn't notice any change.
It turned out to be one of those rich and rare fall
days which is just a June day toned down to a degree
where it is heaven to be out of doors. Toward noon
the guests arrived, and we assembled under a great
tree and were soon as sociable as old acquaintances.
Even the king's reserve melted a little, though it was
some Uttle trouble to him to adjust himself to the
name of Jones along at first.I had asked him to try
to not forget that he was a farmer; but I had also
considered prudent to ask him to let the thing
it

stand at that, and not elaborate it any. Because he

was just the kind of person you could depend on to
spoila little thing like that if you didn't warn him,
histongue was so handy, and his spirit so willing,
and his information so uncertain.
Dowley was in and I early got him
fine feather,
started, and then adroitly worked him around onto
his own history for a text and himself for a hero, and
then it was good to sit there and hear him hum.
Self-made man, you know. They know how to talk.
They do deserve more credit than any other breed of
men, yes, that is true and they are among the very
;

first to find it out, too. He told how he had begun

life an orphan lad without money and without friends

able to help him; how he had lived as the slaves of

the meanest master lived; how his day's work was
314
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
from sixteen to eighteen hours long, and yielded him
only enough black bread to keep him in a half-fed
condition; how his faithful endeavors finally at-
who came
tracted the attention of a good blacksmith,
near knocking him dead with kindness by suddenly
offering, when he was totally unprepared, to take
him as his bound apprentice for nine years and give
him board and clothes and teach him the trade or —
"mystery" as Dowley called it. That was his first
great rise, his first gorgeous stroke of fortime; and
you saw that he couldn't yet speak of it without a
sort of eloquent wonder and delight that such a
gilded promotion should have fallen to the lot of a
common human being. He got no new clothing
during his apprenticeship, but on his graduation day
his master tricked him out in spang-new tow-linens
and made him feel unspeakably rich and fine.
"I remember me of that day!" the wheelwright
sang out, with enthusiasm.
"And I likewise!" cried the mason. "I would not
believe they were thine own; in faith I could not."
"Nor other!" shouted Dowley, with sparkUng eyes.
"I was like to lose my character, the neighbors
wending I had mayhap been stealing. It was a
great day, a great day; one forgetteth not days like
that."
Yes, and his master was a fine man, and prosper-
ous, and always had a great feast of meat twice in
the year, and with it white bread, true wheaten
bread; in fact, lived like a lord, so to speak. And
in time Dowley succeeded to the business and mar-
ried the daughter.
31S
 MARK TWAIN
"And now consider what is come to pass," said
he, impressively. "Two
times in every month there
is fresh meat upon my table." He made a pause
here, to let that fact sink home, then added "and
—
eight times salt meat."
"It is even true," said the wheelwright, with bated
breath.
"I know it of mine own knowledge," said the
mason, in the same reverent fashion.
On my table appeareth white bread every Stmday
'

'

in the year," added the master smith, with solemnity.

I leave it to your own consciences, friends, if this is
'

'

not also true?"

"By my head, yes," cried the mason.
"I can testify it —
and I do," said the wheel-
wright.
"And as to furniture, ye shall say yourselves what
mine equipment is." He waved
hand in fine his
gesture of granting frank and unhampered freedom
of speech, and added: "Speak as ye are moved;
speak as ye would speak an I were not here."
"Ye have five stools, and of the sweetest work-
manship at that, albeit your family is but three,"
said the wheelwright, with deep respect.
"And six wooden goblets, and six platters of wood
and two of pewter to eat and drink from withal,"
said the mason, impressively. "And I say it as know-
ing God is my judge, and we tarry not here alway,
out must answer at the last day for the things said
in the body, be they false or be they sooth."
"Now ye know what manner of man I am, brother
Jones," said the snaith, with a fine and friendly con-
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 ;

A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
descension, "and doubtless ye would look to find
me a man jealous of his due of respect and but sparing
of outgo to strangers till their rating and quality be
assured, but trouble yourself not, as concerning that
wit ye well ye shall find me a man that regardeth not
these matters but is willing to receive any he as his
fellow and equal that carrieth a right heart in his
body, be his worldly estate howsoever modest. And
in token of it, here is my hand; and I say with my
— —
own mouth we are equals equals" ^and he smiled
around on the company with the satisfaction of a
god who is doing the handsome and gracious thing
and is quite well aware of it.
The king took the hand with a poorly disguised
reluctance, and let go of it as willingly as a lady lets
go of a fish; all of which had a good effect, for it was
mistaken for an embarrassment natural to one who
was being beamed upon by greatness.
The dame brought out the table now, and set it
under the tree. It caused a visible stir of surprise,
it being brand new and a sumptuous article of deal.

But the surprise rose higher stiU when the dame,

with a body oozing easy indifference at every pore,
but eyes that gave it aU away by absolutely flaming
with vanity, slowly unfolded an actual simon-pure
table-cloth and spread it. That was a notch above
even the blacksmith's domestic grandeurs, and it hit
him hard; you cotild see it. But Marco was in Para-
dise; you could see that, too. Then the dame
brought two fine new stools —^whew! that was a sen-
sation; it was visible in the eyes of every guest.
Then she brought two more —as calmly as she could.
J17
 :

MARK TWAIN
Sensation again— awed mtirmurs. Again she
^with
brought two—^walking on she was so proud. The
air,

guests were petrified, and the mason muttered:

"There is that about earthly pomps which doth
ever move to reverence."
As the dame turned away, Marco couldn't help
slapping on the climax while the thing was hot; so
he said with what was meant for a languid composure
but was a poor imitation of it

"These suffice; leave the rest."

So there were more yet! It was a fine effect. I

couldn't have played the hand better myself.

From this out, the madam piled up the surprises
with a rush that fired the general astonishment up
to a hundred and fifty in the shade, and at the same
time paralyzed expression of it down to gasped
"Oh's" and "Ah's," and mute uphftings of hands
and eyes. She fetched crockery ^new, and plenty —
of it; new wooden goblets and other table furniture;
and beer, fish, chicken, a goose, eggs,. roast beef, roast
mutton, a ham, a small roast pig, and a wealth of
genuine white wheaten bread. Take it by and large,
that spread laid everything far and away in the shade
that ever that crowd had seen before. And while
they sat there just simply stupefied with wonder and
awe, I sort of waved my hand as if by accident, and
the storekeeper's son emerged from space and said
he had come to collect.
"That's all right," I said, indifferently. "What is
the amount? Give us the items."
Then he read off this bill, while those three amazed
men listened, and serene waves of satisfaction rolled
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 : : "

A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
over my soul and alternate waves of terror and admi-
ration surged over Marco's

2 pounds salt . .
200
J

3 bushels wheat ........

dozen pints beer, in the wood

.........
800
2,700
2 pounds fish

3 hens .......... 100

400
I goose
3 dozen eggs
1 roast of beef
....,,...
........
400
150
450
I
I

1
roast of
ham
sucking pig
........
mutton
.

.
400
800
500
2 crockery dinner-sets
2
1
men's suits and underwear ....
stuff and i linsey-woolsey gown and underwear .
6,000
2,800
1,600
wooden
8 goblets
Various table furniture
1 deal table
...... 800
10,000
3,000
8 stools 4,000
2 miller-guns, loaded 3,000

He ceased. There was a pale and awful silence.

Not a limb stirred. Not a nostril betrayed the
passage of breath.
"Is that aU?" I asked, in a voice of the most per-
fect calmness.
"All, fair save that certain matters of light
sir,

moment are placed together under a head hight

simdries. If it would like you, I will sepa
—
"It is of no consequence," I said, accompanying
the words with a gesture of the most utter indiffer-
ence; "give me the grand total, please."
The clerk leaned against the tree to stay himself,
and said
319
 " : : :

MARK TWAIN
'

' Thirty-nine thousand one hundred and fifty mil~

rays!"
The wheelwright fell off his stool, the others
grabbed the table to save themselves, and there was
a deep and general ejaculation of:
"God be with us in the day of disaster!"
The clerk hastened to say
"My father chargeth me to say he cannot honor-
ably require you to pay it all at this time, and there-
fore oijy prayeth you
—
I paid no more heed than
were the idle breeze,
if it

but, with an amounting almost to

air of indifference
weariness, got out my money and tossed foiu- doUars
onto the table. Ah, you should have seen them stare!
The clerk was astonished and charmed. He asked
me to retain one of the dollars as security, until he
could go to town and —
I interrupted
"What, and fetch back nine cents? Nonsense!
Take the whole. Keep the change."
There was an amazed mxurmur to this effect:
'
Verily this being is made of money
' He throweth !

it away even as it were dirt."

The blacksmith was a crushed man.
The clerk took his money and reeled away drunk
with fortune. I said to Marco and his wife
"Good folk, here is a little trifle for you" ^hand- —
ing the miller-guns as if it were a matter of no conse-
quence, though each of them contained fifteen cents
in solid cash; and while the poor creatures went to
pieces with astonishment and gratitude, I turned to
the others and said as calmly as one would ask the
time of day:
320
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
"Well, if we are all ready, I judge the dinner is
Come, fall to."
Ah, well, it was immense; yes, it was a daisy. I
don't know that ever put a situation together
I
better, or got happier spectacidar effects out of the
materials available. The blacksmith —
^well, he was

simply mashed. Land!wouldn't have felt what

I
that man was feeUng, for anything in the world.
Here he had been blowing and bragging about his
grand meat-feast twice a year, and his fresh meat
twice a month, and his salt meat twice a week, and
his white bread every Sunday the year round ^all —
for a family of three; the entire cost for the year
not above 69.2.6 (sixty-nine cents, two mills, and
six milrays), and all of a sudden here comes along a
man who slashes out nearly four dollars on a single
blow-out; and not only that, but acts as if it made
him tired to handle such small sums. Yes, Dowley
was a good deal wilted, and shrunk up and collapsed;
he had the aspect of a bladder-balloon that's been
stepped on by a cow.

321
 —

CHAPTER XXXIII
SIXTH-CENTURY POLITICAL ECONOMY

HOWEVER, I made a dead set at him, and before

the first third of the dinner was reached, I had
—
him happy again. It was easy to do ^in a cotintry
of ranks and castes. You see, in a country where
they have ranks and castes, a man isn't ever a man,
he is only part of a man, he can't ever get his full
growth. You prove your superiority over him in
station, or rank, or fortune, and that's the end of it
he knuckles down. You can't insult him after that.
No, I don't mean quite that of course you can insult
;

him, I only mean it's difficult and so, unless you've

;

got a lot of useless time on your hands it doesn't pay

to try. I had the smith's reverence now, because I

was apparently immensely prosperous and rich; I

could have had his adoration if I had had some
littlegimcrack title of nobility. And not only his,
but any commoner's in the land, though he were the
mightiest production of aU the ages, in intellect,
worth, and character, and I bankrupt in all three.
This was to remain so, England should
as long as
exist in the earth. With the prophecy upon
spirit of
me, I could look into the future and see her erect
statues and monuments to her unspeakable Georges
and other royal and noble clothes-horses, and leave
 —
A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
—
unhonored the creators of this world after God
Gutenberg, Watt, Arkwright, Whitney, Morse.
Stephenson, Bell.
The Idng got his cargo aboard, and then, the taUs
not turning upon battle, conquest, or iron-dad duel,
he dulled down to drowsiness and went off to take a
nap. Mrs. Marco cleared the table, placed the beer-
keg handy, and went away to eat her dinner of leav-
ings in humble privacy, and the rest of us soon drifted
into matters near and dear to the hearts of our sort
business and wages, of course. At a first glance,
things appeared to be exceeding prosperous in this
little tributary kingdom — whose lord was King Bag-
—
demagus as compared with the state of things in
my own region. They had the "protection" system
in full force here, whereas we were working along
down toward free trade, by easy stages, and were
now about half-way. Before long, Dowley and I were
doing all the talking, the others hungrily listening.
Dowley warmed to his work, snuffed an advantage in
the air, and began to put questions which he con-
sidered pretty awkward ones for me, and they did
have something of that look:
"In your country, brother, what is the wage of a
master bailiff, master hind, carter, shepherd, swine-
herd?"
"Twenty-five milrays a day; that is to say, a
quarter of a cent."
The smith's face beamed with joy. He said:
"With us they are allowed the double of it! And
—
what may a mechanic get carpenter, dauber, mason,
painter, blacksmith, wheelwright, and the Hke?"
333
 MARK TWAIN
On the average, fifty milrays half a cent a day."
'
' ;

"Ho-ho! With us they are allowed a hundred!

With us any good mechanic is allowed a cent a day!
I count out the tailor, but not the others they are —
all allowed a cent a day, and in driving times they get
—
more ^yes, up to a himdred and ten and even fifteen
milrays a day. I've paid a hundred and fifteen my-
self, within the week. 'Rah for protection ^to Shecl —
with free trade!"
And his face shone upon the company Hke a sun-
burst. But I didn't scare at all. I rigged up my
pile-driver, and allowed myself fifteen minutes to
drive him into the earth drive him — all in — drive
him in till not even the curve of his skull should
show above-ground. Here is the way I started in on
him. I asked:
"What do you pay a pound for salt?"
"A hundred milrays."
"We pay forty. What do you pay for beef and
mutton —when you buy it?" That was a neat hit;
it made the color come.
"It varieth somewhat, but not much; one may say
seventy-five milrays the pound."
'
' We pay thirty-three. What do you pay for eggs?"
"Fifty milrays the dozen."
"We pay twenty. What do you pay for beer?"
'

' It costeth us eight and one-half milrays the pint."

"We get it for four; twenty-five bottles for a cent.
What do you pay for wheat?"
"At the rate of nine lumdred milrays the bushel."
"We pay four hundred. What do you pay for a
man's tow-linen suit?"
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A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
"Thirteen cents."
"We pay six. What do you pay for a stuff gown
for the wife of the laborer or the mechanic?"
"We pay eight cents, four mills."
"Well, observe the difference: you pay eight cents
and four mills, we pay only four cents." I prepared
now to sock it to him. I said: "Look here, dear
friend, what's become of your high wages you were
—
bragging so about a few minutes ago?" and I looked
around on the company with placid satisfaction, for I
had slipped up on him gradually and tied him hand
and foot, you see, without his ever noticing that he
was being tied at aU. "What's become of those
noble high wages of yours ? —
I seem to have
knocked the stuffing all out of them, it appears
to me."
But if you will believe me, he merely looked sva-
prised, that is all! He didn't grasp the situation at
all, didn't know he had walked into a trap, didn't
discover that he was in a trap. I could have shot
him, from sheer vexation. With cloudy eye and a
struggling intellect he fetched this out:
"Marry, I seem not to understand. It is proved

that owe wages be double thine; how then may it be

that thou' St knocked therefrom the stttffing? an I —
miscall not the wonderly word, this being the first
time under grace and providence of God it hath been
granted me to hear it."
Well, I was stunned; partly with this unlocked for
stupidity on his part, and partly because his fellows
so manifestly sided with him and were of his mind
if you might call it mind. My position was simple
32s
 " : —

MARK TWAIN
enough, plain enough; how could it ever be simpli-
fied more? However, I must try:
"Why, look here, brother Dowley, don't you see?
Your wages are merely higher than ours in name, not
in fact/'
"Hear him! They are the double — ^ye have con-
fessed it yourself."
"Yes-yes, I don't deny that at all. But that's got
nothing to do with it; the amount of the wages in
mere coins, with meaningless names attached to them
to know them by, has got nothing to do with it. The
thing is, how much can you buy with your wages?
that's the idea. While it is true that with you a
good mechanic is allowed about three dollars and a
half a year, and with us only about a dollar and
seventy-five
—
"There — ^ye're confessing it again, ye're confess-
ing it again!"
"Confound it, I've never denied it, I tell you!
What I say is this. With us half a dollar buys
more than a buys with you
dollar and therefore it —
stands to reason and the commonest kind of common
sense, that our wages are higher than yours."
He looked dazed, and said, despairingly
'
Verily, I cannot make it out. Ye' ve just saido^xrs are
'

the higher, and with the same breath ye take it back."

"Oh, great Scott, isn't it possible to get such a
simple thing through your head? Now look here-
let me illustrate. We pay four cents for a woman's
stuff gown, you pay eight cents four mills, which is
four mills more than double. What do you allow a,
laboring- woman who works on a farm?"
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 " : " —
A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
"Two mills a day."
"Very good; we allow but half as much; we p&y
her only a tenth of a cent a day; and
—
"Again ye're conf —
"Wait! Now, you see, the thing is very simple;
this time you'll understand it. For instance, it takes
your woman forty-two days to earn her gown, at two
mills a day —seven weeks' work; but oiirs earns hers
—
in forty days two days short of seven weeks. Your
woman has a gown, and her whole seven weeks'
wages are gone; ours has a gown, and two days'
wages left, to buy something else with. There now
you understand it!"
He looked —^well, he merely looked dubious, it's

the most I can say; so did the others. I waited to —

let the thing work. Dowley spoke at last and be- —
trayed the fact that he actually hadn't gotten away
from his rooted and grounded superstitions yet. He
said,with a trifle of hesitancy
— —
"But ^but ^ye cannot fail to grant that two mills
a day is better than one."
Shucks! WeU, of course, I hated to give it up.
So chanced another flyer:
I
"Let us suppose a case. Suppose one of your
journeymen goes out and buys the following articles;
"i pound of salt;
I dozen eggs;

I dozen pints of beer;

I bushel of wheat;

I tow-linen suit;
5 pounds of beef;
5
potmds of mutton.
327
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MARK TWAIN
"The lot will cost him thirty-two cents. It takes
him thirty-two working days to earn the money
five weeks and two days. Let him come to us and
work thirty-two days at half the wages ; he can buy
all those things for a shade under fotirteen and a half
cents they will cost him a shade under twenty-nine
;

days' work, and he wiU have about half a week's

wages over. Carry it through the year; he would
save nearly a week's wages every two months, your
man nothing; thus saving five or six weeks' wages
in a year, your man not a cent. Now I reckon you
understand that 'high wages' and 'low wages' are
phrases that don't mean anything in the world imtil
you find out which of them will huy the most!"
It was a crusher.
But, alas ! it didn't crush. No, I had to give it up.
What those people valued was high wages; it didn't
seem to be a matter of any consequence to them
whether the high wages would buy anything or not.
They stood for "protection," and swore by it, which
was reasonable enough, because interested parties had
gulled them into the notion that it was protection
which had created their high wages. I proved to
them that in a quarter of a century their wages had
advanced but thirty per cent., while the cost of living
had gone up one hundred; and that with us, in a
shorter time, wages had advanced forty per cent,
while the cost of living had gone steadily down. But
it didn't do any good. Nothing could unseat their
strange beliefs.
Well, Iwas smarting under a sense of defeat. Un-
deserved defeat, but what of that? That didn't
328
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
soften the smart any. And to think of the circum-
stances ! The first statesman of the age, the capablest
man, the best-informed man in the entire world, the
loftiest uncrowned head that had moved through the
douds of any political firmament for centuries, sit-
ting here apparently defeated in argument by an
ignorant country blacksmith! And I could see that
those others were sorry for —^which
me! made me
blush till I could smell my whiskers scorching. Put
yourself in my place; feel as mean as I did, as
ashamed as I felt —^wouldn't you have struck below
the belt to get even? Yes, you would; it is simply
hiunan nature. Well, that is what I did. I am not
I'm only saying that
trying to justify it; I was mad,
and anybody would have done it.
Well, when I make up my mind to hit a man, I
don't plan out a love-tap; no, that isn't my way; as
long as I'm going to hit him at all, I'm going to hit
him a lifter. And I don't jump at him all of a sudden,
and risk making a blundering half-way business of
it; no, I get away off yonder to one side, and work

up on him gradually, so that he never suspects that

I'm going to hit him at all; and by and by, all in a
flash, he's flat on his back, and he can't tell for the
life of him how it all happened. That is the way I
went for brother Dowley. I started to talking lazy
and comfortable, as if I was just talking to pass
the time; and the oldest man in the world couldn't
have taken the bearings of my starting-place and
guessed where I was going to fetch up:
"Boys, there's a good many cvirious things about
law, and custom, and usage, and all that sort o£
323
 —
MARK TWAIN
thing, when you come it; yes, and about
to look at
the drift and progress of human
opinion and move-
ment, too. —
There are written laws they peijsh; but
there are also \mwritten laws they are eternal. Take
the unwritten law of wages: itsays they've got to
advance, little by little, straight through the cen-
turies. And how it works. We know what
notice
wages are now, here and there and yonder; we strike
an average, and say that's the wages of to-day. We
know what the wages were a hvmdred years ago, and
what they were two hundred years ago that's as far ;

back as we can get, but it suffices to give us the law

of progress, the measxire and rate of the periodical
augmentation; and so, without a document to help
us, we can come pretty close to determining what the
wages were three and four and five htmdred years
ago. Good, so far. Do we stop there? No. We
stop looking backward; we face around and apply
the law to the future. My friends, I can tell you
what people's wages are going to be at any date in
the future you want to know, for hundreds and hun-
dreds of years."
"What, goodman, what!"
"Yes. In seven htmdred years wages wiU have
risen to six times what they are now, here in your
region, and farm-hands will be allowed three cents
a day, and mechanics six."
"I would I might die now and live then!" inter-
rupted Smug, the wheelwright, with a fine avaricious
glow in his eye.
"And that isn't all; they'll get their board besides
—such as it is: it won't bloat them. Two hundred
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A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
and fifty years later —pay attention now —a me-
chanic's wages will be —mind you, this is law, not
guesswork; a mechanic's wages will then be twenty
cents a day!"
There was a general gasp of awed astonishment.
Dickon the mason murmured, with raised eyes and
hands
"More than three weeks' pay for one day's work!"
—
"Riches! of a truth, yes, riches!" muttered
Marco, his breath coming quick and short, with ex-
citement.
"Wages will keep on rising, little by little, little by
little, as steadily as a tree grows, and at the end of
three hundred and forty years more there'll be at
least one country where the mechanic's average wage
will be two hundred cents a day!"
Itknocked them absolutely dumb! Not a man of
them could get his breath for upward of two min-
utes. Then the coal-burner said, prayerfully:
"Might I but live to see it!"
"It is the income of an earl!" said Smug.
"An say ye?" said Dowley; "ye could say
earl,
more than that and speak no lie there's no earl in ;

the realm of Bagdemagus that hath an income Hke to

that. Income of an earl ^mf —
it's the income of an
!

angel!"
"Now, is what is going to happen as
then, that
regards wages. In that remote day, that man will
earn, with one week's work, that biU of goods which
it takes you upward oi fifty weeks to earn now. Some

other pretty surprising things are going to happen,

too. Brother Dowley, who is it that determines,
 —:

MARK TWAIN
every spring, what the particular wage of each kind of
mechanic, laborer, and servant shall be for that year?"
"Sometimes the courts, sometimes the town coun-
cil; but most of all, the magistrate. Ye may say, in
general terms, it is the magistrate that fixes the
wages."
'

' Doesn't ask any of those poor devils to help him

fix their wages for them, does he?"
"Hm! That were an idea! The master that's to
pay him the money is the one that's rightly con-
cerned in that matter, ye wiU notice."
—
"Yes but I thought the other man might have
some little trifle at stake in it, too and even his wife
;

and children, poor creatures. The masters are these

nobles, rich men, the prosperous generally. These
few, who do no work, determine what pay the vast
hive shall have who do work. You see? They're a
—
'combine' a trade-union, to coin a new phrase
who band themselves together to force their lowly
brother to take what they choose to give. Thirteen
—
hundred years hence so says the unwritten law
the 'combine' will be the other way, and then how
these fine people's posterity will fume and fret and
grit their teeth over the insolent tyranny of trade-
unions! Yes, indeed! the magistrate will tranquilly
arrange the wages from now clear away down into
the nineteenth centtuy ; and then
sudden the all of a
wage-earner will consider that a couple of thousand
years or so is enough of this one-sided sort of thing;
and he will rise up and take a hand in fixing his wages
himself. Ah, he will have a long and bitter account
"
of wrong and humiliation to settle
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A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
"Do ye believe—"
"That he actually Avill help to fix his own wages?
Yes, indeed. And he wiU be strong and able, then."
"Brave times, brave times, of a truth!" sneered
the prosperous smith.
"Oh —^and there's another
detail. In that day, a
master may hire a man for only just one day, or one
week, or one month at a time, if he wants to."
"What?"
"It's true. Moreover, a magistrate won't be able
to force a man to work for a master a whole year on a
stretch whether the man wants to or not."
"Will there be no law or sense in that day?"
"Both of them, Dowley. In that day a man will
be his own property, not the property of magistrate
and master. And he can leave town whenever he
wants to, if the wages don't suit him! and they —
can't put him in the pillory for it."
"Perdition catch such an age!" shouted Dowley,
in strong indignation. "An age of dogs, an age bar-
ren of reverence for superiors and respect for author-
ity! The pillory—
"Oh, wait, brother; say no good word for that
institution. I think the pillory ought to be abol-
ished."
"A most strange idea. Why?"
"Well, I'll tell you why. Is a man ever put in the
pillory for a capital crime?"
"No."
"Is it right to condemn a man to a slight punish-
ment for a small ofifense and then kill him?"
There was no answer. I had scored my first
333
 MARK TWAIN
point! For the first time, the smith wasn't up and
ready. The company noticed it. Good effect.

"You don't answer, brother. You were about to

glorify the pillory a while ago, and shed some pity on
a future age that isn't going to use it. I think the
pillory ought to be abolished. What usually happens
when a poor fellow is put in the pillory for some little
offense that didn't amoimt to anything in the world?
The mob try to have some fun with him, don't
they?"
"Yes."
"They begin by clodding him; and they laugh
themselves to pieces to see him try to dodge one clod
and get hit with another?"
"Yes."
"Then they throw dead cats at him, don't they?"
"Yes."
"Well, then, suppose he has a few personal ene-
—
mies in that mob and here and there a man or a
woman with a secret grudge against him and sup- —
pose especially that he is impopular in the commu-
nity, for his pride, or his prosperity, or one thing or
—
another stones and bricks take the place of clods
and cats presently, don't they?"
"There is no doubt of it."
"As a rule he is crippled for life, isn't he? ^jaws —
—
broken, teeth smashed out ? or legs mutilated, gan-
—
grened, presently cut oflf? or an eye knocked out,
maybe both eyes?"
"It is true, God knoweth it."
"And if he is unpopular he can depend on dying,
right there in the stocks, can't he?"
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 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
"He surely can! One may not deny it."
"I take it none of you are iinpoptilar —
^by reasorv
of pride or insolence, or conspicuous prosperity, or
any of those things that excite envy and malice
among the base scum of a village? You wouldn't
think it much of a risk to take a chance in the
stocks?"
Dowley winced, visibly. I judged he was hit.
But he didn't betray it by any spoken word. As for
the others, they spoke out plainly, and with strong
feeling. They said they had seen enough of the
stocks to know what a man's chance in them
was, and they would never consent to enter them
if they cotild compromise on a quick death by

hanging.
—
"Well, to change the subject ^for I think I've
established my point that the stocks ought to be
abolished. I think some of our laws are pretty unfair.
For instance, if I do a thing which ought to deliver
me to the stocks, and you know I did it and yet
keep still and don't report me, you will get the stocks
if anybody informs on you."

"Ah, but that would serve you but right," said

Dowley, "for you must inform. So saith the law."
The others coincided.
"Well, since you vote me down.
all right, let it go,

But there'sone thing which certainly i^n't fair. The

magistrate fixes a mechanic's wage at one cent a day,
for instance. The law says that if any master shall
venture, even under utmost press of business, to pay
anything over that cent a day, even fpr a single day,
he shall be both fined and pilloried for it; and who-
335
 MARK TWAIN
ever knows he did it and doesn't inform, they also

shall be fined and pilloried. Now it seems to me

unfair, Dowley, and a deadly peril to all of us, that
because you thoughtlessly confessed, a while ago,
that within a week you have paid a cent and fifteen
mil—"
Oh, I tell you it was a smasher! You ought to
have seen them go to pieces, the whole gang. I had
just slipped up on poor smiling and complacent Dow-
ley so nice and easy and softly, that he never sus-
pected anything was going to happen tiU the blow
came crashing down and knocked him all to rags.
A fine effect. In fact, as fine as any I ever pro-
duced, with so little time to work it up in.
But I saw in a moment that I had overdone the
thing a Httle. I was expecting to scare them, but I
wasn't expecting to scare them to death. They were
mighty near it, though. You see they had been a
whole lifetime learning to appreciate the pUlory; and
to have that thing staring them in the face, and every
one of them distinctly at the mercy of me, a stranger,
if I chose to go and report —
weU, it was awful, and
they couldn't seem to recover from the shock, they
couldn't seem to pull themselves together. Pale,
shaky, dumb, pitiful? Why, they weren't any better
than so many dead men. It was very imcomfortable.
Of course, I thought they wotdd appeal to me to keep
mum, and then we would shake hands, and take a
drink all round, and laugh it off, and there an end.
But no ;
you see I was an unknown person, among a
efuelly oppressed and suspicious people, a people
always accustomed to having advantage taken of
336
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
their helplessness,and never expecting just or kind
treatment from any but their own families and very
closest intimates. Appeal to me to be gentle, to be
fair, to be generous? Of course, they wanted to,
but they couldn't dare.

33'
 —

CHAPTER XXXIV
THE YANKEE AND THE KING SOLD AS SLAVES

WELL,
hurry,
what had better do?
must get up a
sure. I
I Nothing in a
diversion; any-
thing to employ me while I could think, and while
these poor fellows could have a chance to come to
life again. There sat Marco, petrified in the act
of trying to get the hang of his miller-gun —turned
to stone, just in the attitude he was in when my
pile-driver fell, the toy stiU gripped in his uncon-
scious fingers. So I took it from him and proposed
to explain its mystery. Mystery! a simple little
thing like that; and yet it was mysterious enough,
for that race and that age.
never saw such an awkward people, with ma-
I
chinery; you see, they were totally unused to it.
The miller-gun was a little double-barreled tube of
toughened glass, with a neat little trick of a spring
to which upon pressure would let a shot escape.
it,

But the shot wouldn't hurt anybody, it would only

drop into yotu- hand. In the gun were two sizes
wee mustard-seed shot, and another sort that were
several times larger. They were money. The
mustard-seed shot represented milrays, the larger
ones mills. So the gun was a purse and very handy, ;

too; you could pay out money in the dark with it,
338
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
with accuracy; and you covild carry it in your
mouth; or in your vest pocket, if you had one. I
—
made them of several sizes one size so large that
it would carry the equivalent of a dollar. Using
shot for money was a good thing for the govern-
ment; the metal cost nothing, and the money
couldn't be cotmterfeited, for I was the only person
in the kingdom who knew how to manage a shot-
tower. "Paying the shot" soon came to bb-a.com-
mon phrase. Yes, and I knew it would still be
passing men's Ups, away down in the nineteenth
century, yet none would suspect how and when it
originated.
The king joined us, about this time, mightily
refreshedby his nap, and feeling good. Anything
could make me nervous now, I was so uneasy ^for —
our lives were in danger; and so it worried
to me
detect a complacent something in the king's eye
which seemed to indicate that he had been loading
himself up for a performance of some kind or other;
confound it, why must he go and choose such a
time as this?
I was right. He began, straight off, in the most
innocently artful, and transparent, and lubberly
way, to lead up to the subject of agriculture. The
cold sweat broke out all over me. I wanted to
whisper in his ear, "Man, we are in awful danger!
every moment is worth a principality till we get
back these men's confidence; don't waste any of this
golden time." But of course I couldn't do it.
Whisper to him? It would look as if we were con-
spiring. So I had to sit there and look calm and
339
 " " "

MARK TWAIN
pleasant while the king stood over that dynamite
mine and mooned along about his damned onions
and things. At first the ttmiult of my own thoughts,
summoned by the danger-signal and swarming to
the rescue from every quarter of my skull, kept up
such a hurrah and confusion and fifing and drum-
ming that I couldn't take in a word; but presently
when my mob of gathering plans began to crystallize
and faU into position and form line of battle, a sort
of order and qiiiet ensued and I caught the boom
of the king's batteries, as if out of remote dis-

tance:
—"were not the best way, methinks, albeit it is

not to be denied that authorities differ as concern-

ing this point, some contending that the onion is
but an unwholesome beny when stricken early from
the tree
—
The audience showed signs of life, and sought each
other's eyes in a surprised and troubled way.
— " whileas others do yet maintain, with much
show of reason, that this is not of necessity the case,
instancing that plums and other Kke cereals do be
always dug in the unripe state —
The audience exhibited distinct distress; yes, and
also fear.
—"yet are they clearly wholesome, the more
especially when one doth assuage the asperities of
their nature by admixture of the tranqtulizing juice
of the wayward cabbage
—
The wild light of terror began to glow in these
men's eyes, and one of them muttered, "These be
errors, every one —God hath siirely smitten the
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 "

A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
mind of this farmer." I was in miserable appre-
hension; I sat upon thorns.
—"and further instancing the known truth that
in the case of animals, the yotmg, which may be
called the green fruit of the creature, is the better,
allconfessing that when a goat is ripe, his fur doth
heat and sore engame his flesh, the which defect,
taken in connection with his several rancid habits,
and fulsome appetites, and godless attitudes of
mind, and bilious quality of morals —
They rose and went for him With a fierce shout,
!

"The one would betray us, the other is mad! Kill

them! Kill them!" they flung themselves upon us.
What joy flamed up in the king's eye He might be
!

lame in agriculture, but this kind of thing was just

in his line. He had been fasting long, he was hungry
fora fight. He hit the blacksmith a crack under the
jaw that lifted him clear off his feet and stretched
him flat on his back. "St. George for Britain!" and
ne downed the wheelwright. The mason was big,
out I laid him out like nothing. The three gathered
themselves up and came again; went down again;
came again; and kept on repeating this, with native
British pluck, until they were battered to jelly,
reeling with exhaustion, and so blind that they
couldn't tell us from each other; and yet they kept
right on, hammering away with what might was
left in them. Hammering each other ^for we —
stepped aside and looked on while they rolled, and
struggled, and gouged, and pounded, and bit, with
the strict and wordless attention to business of so
many bulldogs. We looked on without apprehen
341
 MARK TWAIN
sion, for they were fast getting past ability to go for
help against us, and the arena was far enough from
the public road to be safe from intrusion.
Well, while they were gradually playing out, it
suddenly occurred to me to wonder what had become
of Marco. I looked around; he was nowhere to be
seen. Oh, but this was ominous! I pulled the
king's sleeve, and we glided away and rushed for
the hut. No Marco there, no Phyllis there! They
had gone to the road for help, sure. I told the king
to give his heels wings, and
would explain later.
I
We made good time across the open ground, and as
we darted into the shelter of the wood I glanced
back and saw a mob of excited peasants swarm into
view, with Marco and his wife at their head. They
were making a world of noise, but that couldn't hurt
anybody; the wood was dense, and as soon as we
were well into its depths we would take to a tree and
let them whistle. Ah, but then came another sound
— dogs! Yes, that was quite another matter. It
—
magnified otu- contract ^we must find running water.
We tore along at a good gait, and soon left the
sotmds far behind and modified to a murmur. We
struck a stream and darted into it. We waded
swiftly down it, dim forest light, for as much
in the
as three hundred yards, and then came across an
oak with a great bough sticking out over the water.
We climbed up on this bough, and began to work
our way along it to the body of the tree; now we
began to hear those sounds more plainly; so the mob
had struck our trail. For a while the sounds ap-
proached pretty fast. And then for another while
342
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
they didn't. No doubt the dogs had found the
place where we had entered the stream, and were
now waltzing up and down the shores trjdng to pick
up the trail again.
When we were snugly lodged in the tree and cur-
tained with foliage, the king was satisfied, but I was
doubtful. I believed we could crawl along a branch
and get into the next and I judged it worth
tree,
while to try. We tried it, and made a success of it,
though the king sUpped, at the junction, and came
near faiHng to connect. We got comfortable lodg-
ment and satisfactory concealment among the foliage,
and then we had nothing to do but listen to the hunt.
—
Presently we heard it coming and coming on the
jump, too; yes, and down both sides of the stream.
Louder — ^louder —^next minute it swelled swiftlyup
into a roar of shoutings, barkings, tramplings, and
swept by like a cyclone.
"I was afraid that the overhanging branch would
suggest something to them," said I, "but I don't
mind the disappointment. Come, my liege, it were
weU that we make good use of our time. We've
flanked them. Dark is coming on, presently. If we
can cross the stream and get a good start, and
borrow a couple of horses from somebody's pasture
to use for a few hotirs, we shall be safe enough."
We started down, and got nearly to the lowest
limb, when we seemed to hear the htmt rettiming.
We stopped to listen.
"Yes," said I, "they're baffled, they've given it
up, they're on their way home. We will climb back
to our roost again, and let them go by."
343
 :

MARK TWAIN
So we climbed back. The king listened a moment
and said
"They still search —I wit the sign. We did best
to abide."
He was right. He knew more about hunting than
I did. The noise approached steadily, but not with
a rush. The king said:
"They reason that we were advantaged by no
parlous start of them, and being on foot are as yet
no mighty way from where we took the water."
"Yes, sire, that is about it, I am afraid, though I

was hoping better things."

The noise drew nearer and nearer, and soon the
van was drifting under us, on both sides of the water.
A voice called a halt from the other baiik, and said:
"An they were so minded, they could get to yon
tree by this branch that overhangs, and yet not
touch groxmd. Ye will do well to send a man up it."
"Marry, that we will do!"
I was obliged to admire my cuteness in foreseeing
this very thing and swapping trees to beat it. But,
don't you know, there are some things that can beat
smartness and foresight? Awkwardness and stu-
pidity can. The best swordsman in the world
doesn't need to fear the second best swordsman in
the world; no, the person for him to be afraid of is
some ignorant antagonist who has never had a
sword in his hand before; he doesn't do the thing he
ought to do, and so the expert isn't prepared for
him he does the thing he ought not to do and often
; ;

it catches the expert out and ends him on the spot.

Well, how could I, with all my gifts, make any

344
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
valuable preparation against a near-sighted, cross-
eyed, pudding-headed clown who woiild aim himself
at the wrong tree and hit the right one? And that
iswhat he did. He went for the wrong tree, which
was, of course, the right one by mistake, and up he
started.
Matters were serious now. We remained still,
and awaited developments. The peasant toiled his
difficult way up. The king raised himself up and
stood; he made a leg ready, and when the comer's
head arrived in reach of it there was a dull thud,
and down went the man floundering to the ground.
There was a wild outbreak of anger below, and the
mob swarmed in from all around, and there we were
treed, and prisoners. Another man started up; the
bridging bough was detected, and a volunteer started
up the tree that furnished the bridge. The king
ordered me to play Horatius and keep the bridge.
For a while the enemy came thick and fast; but no
matter, the head man of each procession always got
a buffet that dislodged him as soon as he came in
reach. The king's spirits rose, his joy was limitless.
He said that if nothing occtured to mar the prospect
we should have a beautiful night, for on this line of
tactics we could hold the tree against the whole
country-side.
However, the mob
soon came to that conclusion
themselves; wherefore they called off the assault and
began to debate other plans. They had no weapons,
but there were plenty of stones, and stones might
answer. We had no objections. A stone might
possibly penetrate to us once in a while, but it
345
 :

MARK TWAIN
we were well protected by boughs
wasn't very likely;
and and were not visible from any good
foliage,
aiming-point. If they wotdd but waste half an
hour in stone-throwing, the dark would come to
our help. We were feeling very well satisfied. We
could smile; almost laugh.
But we didn't; which was just as well, for we
should have been interrupted. Before the stones
had been raging through the leaves and bouncing
from the boughs fifteen minutes, we began to notice
a smell. A couple of sniffs of itwas enough of an
explanation: it was smoke! Our game was up at
last. We recognized that. When smoke invites
you, you have to come. They raised their pile of
dry brush and damp weeds higher and higher, and
when they saw the thick cloud begin to roll up and
smother the tree, they broke out in a storm of joy-
clamors. I got enough breath to say:
Proceed, my Uege after you is manners."
'

' ;

The king gasped

"Follow me down, and then back thyself against
one side of the trunk, and leave me the other.
Then will we fight. Let each pile his dead accord-
ing to his own fashion and taste."
Then he descended, barking and coughing, and I
fcUowed. I struck the ground an instant after
him; we sprang to our appointed places, and began
to give and take with all our might. The powwow
and racket were prodigious; it was a tempest of riot
and confusion and thick-falling blows. Suddenly
some horsemen tore into the midst of the crowd, and
a voice shouted:
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 " "

A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
"Hold —or ye are dead men!"
How good it sotmded! The owner of the voice
bore all the marks of a gentleman: picturesque and
costly raiment, the aspect of command, a hard
countenance, with complexion and features marred
by dissipation. The mob fell humbly back, like so
many spaniels. The gentleman inspected us criti-
then said sharply to the peasants:
cally,
"What are ye doing to these people?"
"They be madmen, worshipful sir, that have come
Wandering we know not whence, and —
"Ye know not whence? Do ye pretend ye know
them not?"
"Most honored sir, we speak but the truth.
They are strangers and unknown to any in this
and they be the most violent and blood-
region;
thirstymadmen that ever —
"Peace! Ye know not what ye say. They are
not mad. Who are ye? And whence are ye?
Explain."
"We are but peaceful strangers, sir," I said,
"and traveling upon otir own concerns. We are
from a far country, and unacquainted here. We
have purposed no harm; and yet but for your brave
interference and protection these people would have
killed us. As you have divined, sir, we are not
mad; neither are we violent or bloodthirsty."
The gentleman timied to his retinue and said
calmly:
"Lash me these animals to their kennels!"
The mob vanished in an instant; and after them
plunged the horsemen, laying about them with their
347
 MARK TWAIN
whips and pitilessly riding down such as were witless
enough to keep the road instead of taking to the
bush. The shrieks and supplications presently died
away in the distance, and soon the horsemen began
to straggle back. Meantime the gentleman had
been questioning us more closely, but had dug no
particulars out of us. We were lavish of recognition
of the service he was doing us, but we revealed
nothing more than that we were friendless strangers
from a far country. When the escort were all re-
turned, the gentleman said to one of his servants:
"Bring the led-horses and mount these people."
"Yes, my lord."
We were placed toward the rear, among the
servants. We traveled pretty fast, and finally drew
rein some time after dark at a roadside uin some ten
or twelve miles from the scene of our troubles. My
lord went immediately to his room, after ordering
his supper, and we saw no more of him. At dawn in
the morning we breakfasted and made ready to start.
My lord's chief attendant sauntered forward at
thatmoment with indolent grace, and said:
"Ye have said ye should continue upon this road,
which is our direction likewise; wherefore my lord,
the earl Grip, hath given commandment that ye
and ride, and that certain of us ride
retain the horses
with ye a twenty mile to a fair town that hight
Cambenet, whenso ye shall be out of peril."
We could do nothing less than express our thanks
and accept the offer. We jogged along, six in the
party, at a moderate and comfortable gait, and in
conversation learned that my lord Grip was a very
348
 : —
A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
great personage in his own region, which lay a day's
jovimey beyond Cambenet. We loitered to such a
degree that it was near the middle of the forenoon
when we entered the market-square of the town.
We dismounted, and left our thanks once more for
my lord, and then approached a crowd assembled
in the center of the square, to see what might be
the object of interest. It was the remnant of that
old peregrinating band of slaves So they had been
!

dragging their chains about, all this weary time.

That poor husband was gone, and also many others;
and some few purchases had been added to the gang.
The king was not interested, and wanted to move
along, but I was absorbed, and fuU of pity. I could
not take my eyes away from these worn and wasted
wrecks of humanity. There they sat, grouped upon
the ground, silent, vincomplaining, with bowed heads,
a pathetic sight.. And by hideous contrast, a re-
dundant orator was making a speech to another
gathering not thirty steps away, in fvilsome laudation
of "our glorious British liberties!"
I was boiling. I had forgotten I was a plebeian,
I was remembering I was a man. Cost what it
might, I wotild motmt that rostrum and
Click! the king and I were handcuffed together!
Our companions, those servants, had done it; my
lord Grip stood looking on. The king burst out in
a fury, and said
"What meaneth this ill-mannered jest?"
My head miscreant, coolly;
lord merely said to his
"Put up the slaves and sell them!"
Slaves! The word had a new sound and ho^s —
349
 :

MARK TWAIN
The king lifted his manacles
tinspeakably awftol!
and brought them down with a deadly force; but
my lord was out of the way when they arrived.
A dozen of the rascal's servants sprang forward, and
in a moment we were helpless, with our hands bound
behind us. We so loudly and so earnestly pro-
claimed ourselves freemen, that we got the inter-
ested attention of that liberty-mouthing orator and
his patriotic crowd, and they gathered about us and
assumed a very determined attitude. The orator
said:
"If, indeed, ye are freemen, ye have naught to
—
fear the God-given liberties of Britain are about ye
for your shield and shelter! [Applause.] Ye shall
soon see. Bring forth your proofs."
"What proofs?"
"Proof that ye are freemen."
—
Ah I remembered! I came to myself; I said
nothing. But the king stormed out
"Thou'rt insane, man. It were better, and more
in reason, that this thief and scotmdrel here prove
that we are not freemen."
You see, he knew his own laws just as other people
so often know the laws; by words, not by effects.
They take a meaning, and get to be very vivid, when
you come to apply them to yourself.
All hands shook their heads and looked disap-
pointed; some turned away, no longer interested.
The —and
orator said this time in the tones of
business, not of sentiment:
"An ye do not know your country's laws, it were
time ye learned them. Ye are strangers to us; ye
35°
 " " "

A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
will not deny that. Ye may be freemen, we do not
deny that; but also ye may be slaves. The law is
clear: it doth not reqidre the claimant to prove ye
are slaves, it requireth you to prove ye are not."
I said:
"Dear sir, give us only time to send to Astolat;
or give us only time to send to the Valley of
Holiness
—
"Peace, good man, these are extraordinary re-
quests,and you may not hope to have them grant-
ed. It would cost much time, and would unwar-
rantably inconvenience your master —
"Master, idiot!" stormed the king. "I have no-
master, I myself am the m—
"Silence, for God's sake!"
I got the words out in time to stop the king.
We were in trouble enough already; it could not
help us any to give these people the notion that we
were lunatics.
There is no use in stringing out the details. The
earl put us up and sold us at auction. This same
infernal law had existed in our own South in my
own time, more than thirteen hundred years later,
and under it htmdreds of freemen who could not
prove that they were freemen had been sold into
life-long slavery without the circtmistance making
any particular impression upon me; but the minute
law and the auction block came into my personal
experience, a thing which had been merely improper
before became suddenly hellish. Well, that's the
way we are made.
Yes, we were sold at auction, like swine. In a
351
 —
MARK TWAIN
big town and an active market we should have
brought a good price; but this place was utterly
stagnant and so we sold at a figure which makes me
ashamed, every time I think of it. The King of
England brought seven dollars, and his prime min-
ister nine; whereas the king was easily worth twelve
dollars and I as easily worth fifteen. But that is the
way things always go; if you force a sale on a dull
market, I don't care what the property is, you are
going to make a poor business of it, and you can
make up your mind to it. If the earl had had wit
enough to
However, there is no occasion for my working
my sympathies up on his account. Let him go, for
the present; I took his number, so to speak.
The slave-dealer bought us both, and hitched us
onto that long chain of and we constituted the
his,
rear of his procession. We took up our line of
march and passed out of Cambenet at noon; and it
seemed to me tmaccountably strange and odd that
the King of England and his chief minister, march-
ing manacled and fettered and yoked, in a slave
convoy, could move by all mariner of idle men and
women, and under windows where sat the sweet and
the lovely, and yet never attract a curious eye, never
provoke a single remark. Dear, dear, it only shows
that there is nothing diviner about a king than there
is about a tramp, after all. He is just a cheap and
hollow artificiality when you don't know he is a
king. But reveal his quality, and dear me it takes
your very breath away to look at him. I reckon we
are all fools. Bom so, no doubt.
352
 CHAPTER XXXV
A PITIFUL INCIDENT

IT'S a world of surprises. The king brooded; this

was natural. What would he brood about, should
you say? Why, about the prodigious nature of
his fall, of course —
from the loftiest place in the
world to the lowest from the most illustrious station
;

in the world to the obscurest; from the grandest

vocation among men to the basest. No, I take my
oath that the thing that graveled him most, to start
with, was not this, but the price he had fetched He
!

couldn't seem to get over that seven dollars. Well,

it stunned me so, when I first found it out, that I

couldn't believe it; it didn't seem nattu-al. But as

soon as my mental sight cleared and I got a right
focus on it, I saw I was mistaken; it was natural.
For this reason a king is a mere artificiality, and so
:

a king's feelings, like the impulses of an automatic

doll, are mere artificiaUties; but as a man, he is a
reality, and his feelings, as a man, are real, not
phantoms. It shames the average man to be
valued below his own estimate of his worth; and the
king certainly wasn't anything more than an average
man, if he was up that high.
Confound him, he wearied me with arguments to
show that in anything like a fair market he would
353
 :

MARK TWAIN
have fetched twenty-five sure— a thing which
dollars,
was plainly nonsense, and full of the baldest conceit;
I wasn't worth it myself. But it was tender groimd
for me to argue on. In fact, I had to simply shirk
argument and do the diplomatic instead. I had to
throw conscience aside, and brazenly concede that
he ought to have brought twenty-five dollars;^
'iphereas I was quite weU aware that in all the ages,
the world had never seen a king that was worth half
the money, and during the next thirteen centuries
wouldn't see one that was worth the fourth of it.
Yes, he tired me. If he began to talk about the
crops; or about the recent weather; or about the
condition of politics; or about dogs, or cats, or mor-
als, or theology —
^no matter what I — sighed, for I
knew what was coming; he was going to get out of
ita palliation of that tiresome seven-dollar sale.
Wherever we halted where there was a crowd, he
VFould give me a look which said plainly: "If that
thing could be tried over again now, Avith this kind
of folk, you would see a different result." Well,
when he was first sold, it secretly tickled me to see
him go for seven dollars; but before he was done
with his sweating and worrying I wished he had
fetched a hundred. The thing never got a chance
to die, for every day, at one place or another, possible
purchasers looked us over, and, as often as any
other way, their conmient on the king was some-
thing like this
"Here's a two-doUar-and-a-half chump with a
thirty-dollar style. Pity but style was marketable."
At last this sort of remark produced an evil result.
354
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
Our owner was a practical person and he perceived
that this defect must be mended if he hoped to find
a purchaser for the king. So he went to work to
take the style out of his sacred majesty. I could
have given the man some valuable advice, but I
didn't; you mustn't volunteer advice to a slave-
driver unless you want to damage the cause you are
arguing for. I had found it a sufficiently difficult
job to reduce the king's style to a peasant's style,
even when he was a willing and anxious pupil; now
then, to undertake to reduce the king's style to a
slave's style— —
and by force go to! it was a stately
contract. Never mind the details — ^itwill save me
trouble to let you imagine them. I wiU only remark
that at the end of a week there was plenty of evidence
that lash and club and fist had done their work well;
—
the king's body was a sight to see and to weep over;
—
but his spirit? ^why, it wasn't even phased. Even
that dull clod of a slave-driver was able to see that
there can be such a thing as a slave who will remain
a man till he dies; whose bones you can break, but
whose manhood you can't. This man found that
from his first effort down to his latest, he couldn't
ever come within reach of the king, but the king
was ready to plunge for him, and did it. So he
gave up at last, and left the king in possession of his
style unimpaired. The fact is, the king was a good
deal more than a king, he was a man; and when a
man is a man, you can't knock it out of him.
We had a rough time for a month, tramping to
and fro in the earth, and suffering. And what Eng-
lishman was the most interested in the slavery
3SS
 MARK TWAIN
question by that time? His grace the king! Yes;
from being the most indifferent, he was become the
most interested. He was become the bitterest hater
of the institution I had ever heard talk. And so I
ventured to ask once more a question which I had
asked years before and had gotten such a sharp
answer that I had not thought it prudent to meddle
in the matter further. Would he abolish slavery?
His answer was as sharp as before, but it was
music this time; I shouldn't ever wish to hear
pleasanter, though the profanity was not good, being
awkwardly put together, and with the crash-word
almost in the middle instead of at the end, where,
of course, it ought to have been.
I was ready and willing to get free now; I hadn't
wanted to get free any sooner. No, I cannot quite
say that. I had wanted to, but I had not been
willing to take desperate chances, and had always
dissuaded the king from them. But now ah, it —
was a new atmosphere! Liberty would be worth
any cost that might be put upon it now. I set about
a plan, and was straightway charmed with it. It
would require time, yes, and patience, too, a great
deal of both. One invent quicker ways, and
coiild
fully as sure ones; but none that wotold be as pic-
turesque as this; none that could be made so dra-
matic. And so I was not going to give this one up.
It might delay us months, but no matter, I would
carry it out or break something.
Now and then we had an adventure. One night
we were overtaken by a snow-storm while still a
nule from the village we were making for. Almost
3S6
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
instantly we were shut up as in a fog, the driving
snow was so thick. You couldn't see a thing, and
we were soon lost. The slave-driver lashed us des-
perately, for he saw ruin before him, but his lashings
only made matters worse, for they drove us further
from the road and from likelihood of succor. So we
had to stop at last and slump down in the snow
where we were. The storm continued until toward
midnight, then ceased. By this time two of our
feebler men and three of our women were dead, and
others past moving and threatened with death. Our
master was nearly beside himself. He stirred up
the living, and made us stand, jump, slap otu"selves,
to restore our circulation, and he helped as well
as he could with his whip.
Now came a diversion. We heard shrieks and
yells, and soon a woman came running and crying;

and seeing our group, she flung herself into our

midst and begged for protection. A mob of people
came tearing after her, some with torches, and they
said she was a witch who had caused several cows to
die by a strange disease, and practised her arts by
help of a devil in the form of a black cat. This poor
woman had been stoned until she hardly looked
human, she was so battered and bloody. The mob
wanted to btun her.
Well, now, what do you suppose our master did?
When we closed arotmd this poor creature to shelter
her, he saw his chance. He said, bum her here, or
they shouldn't have her at all. Imagine that!
They were willing. They fastened her to a post;
they brought wood and piled it about her; they
3S7
 MARK TWAIN
applied the torch while she shrieked and pleaded
and strained her two young daughters to her breast;
and our brute, with a heart solely for business, lashed
us into position about the stake and warmed us into
life and commercial value by the same fire which

took away the innocent life of that poor harmless

mother. That was the sort of master we had. I
took his number. That snow-storm cost him nine
of his flock; and he was more brutal to us than ever,
after that, for many days together, he was so en-
raged over his loss.
We had adventures all along. One day we ran
into a procession. And such a procession! All the
riffraff of the kingdom seemed to be comprehended
in it; and all drunk at that. In the yan was a cart
with a coffin in it, and on the coffin sat a comely

yoimg girl of about eighteen suckHng a baby, which

she squeezed to her breast in a passion of love every
little and every little while wiped from its
while,
face the tears which her eyes rained down upon it;
and always the fooUsh little thing smiled up at her,
happy and content, kneading her breast with its
dimpled fat hand, which she patted and fondled
right over her breaking heart.
Men and women, boys and girls, trotted along
beside or after the cart, hooting, shouting profane
and ribald remarks, singing snatches of foul song,
skipping, dancing —a very holiday of hellions, a sick-
ening sight. We
had struck a suburb of London,
outside the walls, and this was a sample of one sort
of London society. Our master secured a good
place for us near the gallows. A priest was in attend-
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 !

A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
ance, and he helped the girl cKmb up, and said
comforting words to her, and made the under-sheriff
provide a stool for her. Then he stood there by her
on the gallows, and for a moment looked down upon
the mass of upturned faces at his feet, then out over
the solid pavement of heads that stretched away on
every side occupying the vacancies far and near, and
then began to tell the story of the case. And there
was pity in his voice —^how seldom a sound that was
in that ignorant and savage land! I remember
every detail of what he said, except the words he
said it in; and so I change it into my own words:
Law is intended to mete out justice. Sometimes
'
'

it fails. This cannot be helped. We can only grieve,

and be resigned, and pray for the soul of him who
faUs unfairly by the arm of the law, and that his
fellows may be few. A law sends this poor young
—
thing to death ^and it is right. But another law
had placed her where she must commit her crime
—
or starve with her child ^and before God that law is
responsible for both her crime and her ignominious
death
"A Uttle while ago this young thing, this child of
eighteen years, was as happy a wife and mother as
any in England; and her hps were blithe with song,
which is the native speech of glad and innocent
hearts. Her young husband was as happy as she;
for he was doing his whole duty, he worked early and
late at his handicraft, his bread was honest bread
well and fairly earned, he was prospering, he was
furnishing shelter and sustenance to his family, he
was adding his mite to the wealth of the nation. By
359
 MARK TWAIN
consent of a treacherous law, instant destruction fell

upon this holy home and swept it away That young

!

husband was waylaid and impressed, and sent to sea.

The wife knew nothing of it. She sought him every-
where, she moved the hardest hearts with the sup-
plications of her tears, the broken eloquence of her
despair. Weeks dragged by, she watching, waiting,
hoping, her mind going slowly to wreck tmder the
burden of her misery. Little by little aU her small
possessions went for food. When she coiold no
longer pay her rent, they turned her out of doors.
She begged, while she had strength; when she was
starving at last, and her milk failing, she stole a piece
of linen cloth of the value of a fourth part of a
cent, thinking to sell it and save her child. But
she was seen by the owner of the cloth. She was
put in and brought to trial. The man testified
jail

to the facts. A plea was made for her, and her

sorrowful story was told in her behalf. She spoke,
too, by permission, and said she did steal the cloth,
but that her mind was so disordered of late by
trouble that when she was overborne with hunger
aU acts, criminal or other, swam meaningless through
her brain and she knew nothing rightly, except that
she was so hungry !For a moment all were touched,
and there was disposition to deal mercifully with her,
seeing that she was so yovmg and friendless, and her
case so piteous, and the law that robbed her of her
support to blame as being the first and only cause
of her transgression; but the prosecuting ofl&cer
replied that whereas these things were all true, and
most pitiful as well, still there was much small theft
360
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
in these days, and mistimed mercy here would be a
—
danger to property oh, my God, is there no property ^
in ruined homes, and orphaned babes, and broken
—
hearts that British law holds precious! and so he
must reqtiire sentence.
"When the judge put on his black cap, the owner
of the stolen linen rose trembling up, his lip quiver-
ing, his face as gray as ashes; and when the awful
words came, he cried out, 'Oh, poor child, poor
child, I did not know it was death!' and fell as a
tree falls. When they lifted him up his reason was
gone; before the sim was set, he had taken his own
life. A kindly man; a man whose heart was right,
at bottom; add his murder to this that is to be now
done here and charge them both where they belong
;

— to the rulers and the bitter laws of Britain. The

time is come, my child; let me pray over thee ^not —
jor thee, dear abused poor heart and innocent, but
for them that be guilty of thy ruin and death, who
need it more."
After his prayer they put the noose around the
yoimg girl's neck, and they had great trouble to
adjust the knot under her ear, because she was
devouring the baby aU the time, wildly kissing it,
and snatching it to her face and her breast, and
drenching it with tears, and half moaning, half
shrieking all the while, and the baby crowing, and
laughing, and kicking its feet with delight over what
it took for romp and play. Even the hangman
couldn't stand it, but turned away. When all was
ready the priest gently pulled and tugged and forced
the child out of the mother's arms, and stepped
361
 "

MARK TWAIN
qtiickly out of her reach; but she clasped her hands,
and made a wild spring toward him, with a shriek;
— —
but the rope and the under-sheriff ^held her short.
Then she went on her knees and stretched out her
hands and cried:
—
"One more kiss oh, my God, one more, one
—
more ^it is the dying that begs it!"
She got it; she almost smothered the little thing.

And when they got it away again, she cried out:

"Oh, my child, my darling, it will die! It has no
home, it has no father, no friend, no mother —
"It has them all!" said that good priest. "All
these will I be to it till I die."
You should have seen her face then! Gratitude?
Lord, what do you want with words to express
that? Words are only painted fire; a look is the
fire itself.She gave that look, and carried it away
to the treasury of heaven, where aU things that are
divine belong.
362
 CHAPTER XXXVI
AN ENCOUNTER IN THE DARK

LONDON—to a slave — ^was a sufficiently interest-

^ ing place. was merely a great big village;
It
and mainly mud and thatch. The streets were
muddy, crooked, unpaved. The populace was an
ever flocking and drifting swarm of rags, and splen-
dors, of nodding plumes and shining armor. The
king had a palace there; he saw the outside of it.
It made him sigh; yes, and swear a little, in a poor
juvenile sixth-century way. We saw knights and
grandees whom we knew, but they didn't know us
in our ragsand dirt and raw welts and bruises, and
wouldn't have recognized us if we had hailed them,
nor stopped to answer, either, it being unlawftd to
speak with slaves on a chain. Sandy passed within
ten yards of me on a mule —
htmting for me, I
imagined. But the thing which clean broke my
heart was something which happened in front of
our old barrack in a square, while we were enduring
the spectacle of a man being boiled to death in oU
for counterfeiting pennies. It was the sight of a
newsboy — ^and I couldn't get at him! StiU, I had
one comfort; here was proof that Clarence was still
alive and banging away. I meant to be with him

before long; the thought was full of cheer.

363
 —
MARK TWAIN
I had one little glimpse of another thing, one day,
which gave me a great uplift. It was a wire stretch-
ing from housetop to housetop. Telegraph or tele-
phone, sure. I did very much wish I had a little
piece of it. It was just what I needed, in order to
carry out my project of escape. My idea was to
get loose some night, along with the king, then gag
and bind our master, change clothes with him, batter
him into the aspect of a stranger, hitch him to the
slave-chain, assume possession of the property, march
to Camelot, and
But you get my idea; you see what a stunning
dramatic surprise I would wind up with at the
palace. It was all feasible, if I could only get hold
of a slender piece of iron which I could shape into
a lock-pick. I could then undo the lumbering pad-
locks with which our chains were fastened, whenever
I might choose. But I never had any luck; no such
thing ever happened to fall in my way. However,
my chance came at last. A gentleman who had come
twice before to dicker for me, without result, or
indeed any approach to a resiilt, came again. I was
far from expecting ever to belong to him, for the
price asked for me from the time I was first enslaved
was exorbitant, and always provoked either anger or
derision, yet my master stuck stubbornly to it —
twenty-two dollars. He wouldn't bate a cent. The
king was greatly admired, because of his grand
physique, but his kingly style was against him, and
he wasn't salable; nobody wanted that kind of a
slave. I considered myself safe from parting from
him because of my extravagant price. No, I was
3''4
 : "

A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
not expecting to ever belong to this gentleman whom
I have spoken of, but he had something which I
expected would belong to me eventually, if he would
but visit us often enough. It was a steel thing with
a long pin to it, with which his long cloth outside
garment was fastened together in front. There were
three of them. He had disappointed me twice,
because he did not come quite close enough to me
to make my project entirely safe; but this time I
succeeded; I captured the lower clasp of the three,
and when he missed it he thought he had lost it
on the way.
I had a chance to be glad about a minute, then
straightway a chance to be sad again. For when
the purchase was about to fail, as usual, the master
suddenly spoke up and said what would be worded
—
thus ^in modem English
"I'U tell you what I'U do. I'm tired supporting
these two for no good. Give me twenty-two dollars
for this one, and I'U throw the other one in."
The king couldn't get his breath, he was in such
a fury. He began to choke and gag, and meantime
the master and the gentleman moved away dis-
cussing.
"An ye wiU keep the offer open
—
'"Tis open till the morrow at this hour."
"Then I will answer you at that time," said the
gentleman, and disappeared, the master following
him.
Ihad a time of it to cool the king down, but I
managed it. I whispered in his ear, to this effect:
"Your grace will go for nothing, but after another
36s
 MARK TWAIN
fashion. And so shall I. To-night we shall both
be free."
"Ah! How is that?"
"With this thing which I have stolen, I will tinlock
these locks and cast ofl these chains to-night.
When he comes about nine-thirty to inspect us for the
night, we him, gag him, batter him, and
will seize
early in the morning we will march out of this
town, proprietors of this caravan of slaves."
That was as far as I went, but the king was
charmed and satisfied. That evening we waited
patiently for our fellow-slaves to get to sleep and
signify it by the usual sign, for you must not take
many chances on those poor fellows if you can avoid
it. It is best to keep yoxir own secrets. No doubt
they fidgeted only about as usual, but it didn't
seem so to me. It seemed to me that they were
going to be forever getting down to their regular
snoring. As the time dragged on I got nervously
afraid we shouldn't have enough of it left for our
needs; so I made several premature attempts, and
merely delayed things by it; for I couldn't seem to
touch a padlock, there in the dark, without starting
a rattle out of it which interrupted somebody's sleep
and made him turn over and wake some more of
the gang.
But finally I did get my last iron off, and was a
free man once more. I took a good breath of relief,

and reached for the king's irons. Toocomes

late in
!

the master, with a light in one hand and his heavy

walking-staff in the other. I snuggled close among
the wallow of snorers, to conceal as nearly as possible
366
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
that I was naked of irons; and I kept a sharp lookout
and prepared to spring for my man the moment he
should bend over me.
But he didn't approach. He stopped, gazed ab-
sently toward our dusky mass a minute, evidently
thinking about something else; then set down his
light, moved musingly toward the door, and before
a body could imagine what he was going to do, he
was out of the door and had closed it behind him.
"Quick!" said the king. "Fetch him back!"
Of course, it was the thing to do, and I was up and
out in a moment. But, dear me, there were no
lamps in those days, and it was a dark night. But
I glimpsed a dim figiure a few steps away. I darted
for threw myself upon it, and then there was a
it,

state of things and lively! We fought and scuffled

and struggled, and drew a crowd in no time. They
took an immense interest in the fight and encouraged
us all they could, and, in fact, couldn't have been
pleasanter or more cordial if it had been their own
fight. Then a tremendous row broke out behind us,
and as much as half of our audience left us, with a
rush, to invest some sympathy in that. Lanterns
began to swing in aU directions; it was the watch
gathering from far and near. Presently a halberd
fell across my back, as a reminder, and I knew what

it meant. I was in custody. So was my adversary.

We were marched off toward prison, one on each side
of the watchman. Here was disaster, here was a
fine scheme gone to sudden destruction! I tried to
imagine what would happen when the master should
discover that it was I who had been fighting him;
367
 —

MARK TWAIN
and what would happen if they jailed us together in
the general apartment for brawlers and petty law-
breakers, as was the custom; and what might
Just then my antagonist turned his face around
in my direction, the freckled light from the watch-
man's tin lantern fell on it, and by George, he was
the wrong man!

368
 —

CHAPTER XXXVII
AN AWFUL PREDICAMENT

SLEEP? It was impossible. It would nattirally

have been impossible in that noisome cavern of
a jail, with its mangy crowd of drunken, quarrelsome,
and song-singing rapscallions. But the thing that
made sleep aU the more a thing not to be dreamed
of, was my racking impatience to get out of this

place and find out the whole size of what might have
happened yonder in the slave-quarters in conse-
quence of that intolerable miscarriage of mine.
It was a long night, but the morning got around at
last. I made a full and frank explanation to the
court. I said I was a slave, the property of the
great Earl Grip, who had arrived just after dark
at the Tabard inn in the village on the other side
of the water, and had stopped there overnight, by
compulsion, he being taken deadly sick with a
strange and sudden disorder. I had been ordered to
cross to the city in all hasteand bring the best
physician; I was doing my best; naturally I was
running with all my might; the night was dark, I
ran against this common person here, who seized me
by the throat and began to pummel me, although I
told him my errand, and implored him, for the sake
of the great earl my master's mortal peril
369
 — —

MARK TWAIN
The common person interrupted and said it was
a and was going to explain how I rushed upon
lie;

him and attacked him without a word

"Silence, sirrah!" from the court. "Take him
hence and give him a few stripes whereby to teach
him how to treat the servant of a nobleman after a
different fashion another time. Go!"
Then the court begged my pardon, and hoped I
would not fail to tell his lordship it was in no wise the
court's fault that this high-handed thing had hap-
pened. I said I would make it all right, and so took
my leave. Took it just in time, too; he was starting
to ask me why I didn't fetch out these facts the
moment I was arrested. I said I would if I had
thought of it —^which was true— ^but that I was so
battered by that man that all my wit was knocked
out of —
me and so forth and so on, and got myself
away, still mumbling.
I didn't No grass grew under
wait for breakfast.
my feet. was soon at the slave quarters. Empty
I
everybody gone! That is, everybody except one
—
body the slave-master's. It lay there aU battered
to pulp; and all about were the evidences of a ter-
rific fight. There was a rude board coffin on a cart
at the door, and workmen, assisted by the police, were
thinning a road through the gaping crowd in order
that they might bring it in.

Ipicked out a man humble enough in life to

condescend to talk with one so shabby as I, and got
his accoimt of the matter.
"There were sixteen slaves here. They rose against
their master in the night, and thou seest howit ended."
370
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
"Yes. How did it begin?"
There was no witness but the slaves. They said
the slave that was most valuable got free of his bonds
and escaped in —
some strange way ^by magic arts
'twas thought, by reason that he had no key, and the
locks were neither broke nor in any wise injured.
When the master discovered his loss, he was mad
with despair, and threw himself upon his people
with his heavy stick, who resisted and brake his back
and in other and divers ways did give him hurts that
brought him swiftly to his end."
" This is dreadful. It will go hard with the slaves,
no doubt, upon the trial."
"Marry, the trial is over."
"Over!"
"Wotdd they be a week, think you —and the mat-
ter so simple? They were not the half of a quarter of
an hour at it."
"Why, I don't see how they could determine which
were the guilty ones in so short a time."
"Which ones? Indeed, they considered not par-
ticulars like to that.They condemned them in a
body. —
Wit ye not the law? ^which men say the
Romans left behind them here when they went-—that
if one slave killeth his master all the slaves of that
man must die for it."
"True. I had forgotten. And when will these die?"
"Belike within a four and twenty hours; albeit
some say they will wait a pair of days more, if perad-
venture they may find the missing one meantime."
The missing one It made me feel uncomfortable.
!

"Is it likely they will find him?"

371
 "

MARK TWAIN
"Before the day spent—
is They ^yes. seek him
everywhere. They stand at the gates of the town,
with certain of the slaves who will discover him to

them he cometh, and none can pass out but he will

if

be first examined."
"Might one see the place where the rest are con-
fined?"
"The outside of it— ^yes. The inside of it —^but

ye not want to see that."

will
I took the address of that prison for future refer-
ence and then sauntered off. At the first second-hand
clothing shop I came to, up a back street, I got a
rough rig suitable for a common seaman who might be
going on a cold voyage, and bound up my face with a
liberal bandage, saying I had a toothache. This con-
cealed my worst bruises. It was a transformation. I
no longer resembled my former self. Then I struck
out for that wire, fotmd it and followed it to its den.
It was a little room over a butcher's shop ^which —
meant that business wasn't very brisk in the tele-
graphic line. The young chap in charge was drowsing
at his table. I locked the door and put the vast key
in my bosom. This alarmed the young fellow, and he
»vas going to make a noise; but I said:

"Save your wind; if you open your mouth you

are dead, sure. Tackle your instniment. Lively,
now! Call Camelot."
"This doth amaze me! How should such as you
know aught of such matters as —
"Call Camelot! I am a desperate man. Call
Camelot, or get away from the instrument and I will
do it myself."
373
 —
A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
"What—you?"
"Yes—certainly. Stop gabbling. Call the palace."
He made the call.
"Now, then, call Clarence."
"Clarence who?"
"Never mind Clarence who. Say you want Clar-
ence; you'll get an answer."
He did so. We
waited five nerve-straining minutes
— ^ten minutes —
^how long it did seem! and then —
came a was as familiar to me as a human
click that
voice for Clarence had been my own pupil.
;

"Now, my lad, vacate! They wotold have known

my touch, maybe, and so your call was surest; but
I'm all right now."
He vacated the place and cocked his ear to listen
but it didn't win. I used a cipher. I didn't waste
any time in sociabilities with Clarence, but squared
away for business, straight-off thus: —
"The king is here and in danger. We were cap-
txured and brought here as slaves. We should not be
able to prove our identity —
and the fact is, I am not
in a position to try. Send a telegram for the palace
here which wiU carry conviction with it."
His answer came straight back:
"They don't know anything about the telegraph;
they haven't had any experience yet, the line to Lon-
don is so new. Better not venture that. They might
hang you. Think up something else."
Might hang us Little he knew how closely he was
I

crowding the facts. I couldn't think up anything for

the moment. Then an idea struck me, and I started
it along:
373
 :

MARK TWAIN
"Send fivehundred picked knights with Launcelot
in the lead; and send them on the jump. Let them
enter by the southwest gate, and look out for the man
with a white cloth around his right arm."
The answer was prompt
"They shall start in half an hour."
"All right, Clarence; now tell this lad here that
I'm a friend of yours and a dead-head; and that he
tnust be discreet and say nothing about this visit of
mine."
The instrument began to talk to the youth and I
hurried away. I fell to ciphering. In half an hour it
would be nine o'clock. Knights and horses in heavy
armor couldn't travel very fast. These would make
the best time they could, and now that the ground
was in good condition, and no snow or mud, they
would probably make a seven-mile gait they would
;

have to change horses a couple of times; they would

arrive about six, or a little after; it would stiU be
plenty light enough; they would see the white cloth
which I should tie around my right arm, and I would
take command. We would siuxound that prison and
have the king out in no time. It would be showy and
picturesque enough, all things considered, though I

would have preferred noonday, on account of the

more theatrical aspect the thing would have.
Now, then, in order to increase the strings to my
bow, I thought I would look up some of those people
whom I had formerly recognized, and make myself
known. That would help us out of our scrape, with-
out the knights. But I must proceed cautiously, for
it was a risky business. I must get into sumptuous

374
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
raiment, and it wouldn't do to run and jump into it.
No, I must work up to it by degrees, buying suit after
suit of clothes, in shops wide apart, and getting a
little finer article with each change, tmtil I should

finally reach silk and velvet, and be ready for my

project. So I started.
But the scheme fell through Hke scat! The first
comer I ttimed, I came plump upon one of our slaves,
snooping around with a watchman. I coughed at the
moment, and he gave me a sudden look that bit right
into my marrow. I judge he thought he had heard
that cough before. I turned immediately into a shop
and worked along down the cotmter, pricing things
and watching out of the comer of my eye. Those
people had stopped, and were talking together and
looking in at the door. I made up my mind to get
out the back way, if there was a back way, and I
asked the shopwoman if I could step out there and
look for the escaped slave, who was believed to be in
hiding back there somewhere, and said I was an
officer in disguise, and my pard was yonder at the
door with one of the murderers in charge, and would
she be good enough to step there and tell him ,he
needn't wait, but had better go at once to the further
end of the back aUey and be ready to head him off
when I rousted him out.
She was blazing with eagerness to see one of those
already celebrated murderers, and she started on the
errand at once. I slipped out the back way, locked
the door behind me, put the key in my pocket and
started off, chuckling to myself and comfortable.
Well, I had gone and spoiled it again, made another
375
 MARK TWAIN
mistake. A double one, in fact. There were plenty
of ways to get rid of that officer by sonae simple and
plausible device, but no, I must pick out a picturesque
one ; it is the crying defect of my character. And then,
I had ordered my procedure upon what the officer,
being human, would naturally do; whereas when you
are least expecting it, a man wiU now and then go
and do the very thing which it's not natural for him
to do. The natural thing for the officer to do, in this
case, was to follow straight on my
he would heels;
find a stout oaken door, securely locked, between
him and me; before he could break it down, I should
be far away and engaged in slipping into a succession
of baffling disguises which woxild soon get me into
a sort of raiment which was a surer protection from
meddling law-dogs in Britain than any amount of
mere innocence and ptuity of character. But instead
of doing the natural thing, the officer took me at my
word, and followed my instructions. And so, as I
came trotting out of that cul de sac, full of satisfaction
with my own cleverness, he tximed the comer and I
walked right into his handcuffs. If I had known it
—
was a cul de sac ^however, there isn't any excusing
a blunder Hke that, let it go. Charge it up to profit
and loss.
Of course, I was indignant, and swore I had just
come ashore from a long voyage, and all that sort of
—
thing ^just to see, you know, if it would deceive that
slave. But it didn't. He knew me. Then I re-
proached him for betraying me. He was more sur-
prised than hurt. He stretched his eyes wide, and
said:

S76
 : :

A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
"What, wouldst have me let thee, of all men,
escape and not hang with us, when thou'rt the very
cause of our hanging? Go to!"
" Go to " was their way of saying, I should smile !"
'
'

or "I like that!" Queer talkers, those people.

Well, there was a sort of bastard justice in his view
of the case, and so I dropped the matter. When you
can't cure a disaster by argument, what is the use to
argue? It isn't my way. So I only said:
"You're not going to be hanged. None of us are."
Both men laughed, and the slave said
"Ye have not ranked as a fool ^before. — You
might better keep your reputation, seeing the strain
would not be for long."
"It will stand it, I reckon. Before to-morrow we
shallbe out of prison, and free to go where we will,
besides."
The witty officer lifted at his left ear with his
thumb, made a rasping noise in his throat, and said
"Out of prison — —
^yes ^ye say true. And free like-
wise to go where ye will, so ye wander not out of
his grace the Devil's sultry realm."
I kept my
temper, and said, indifferently:
"Now suppose you really think we are going to
I
hang within a day or two."
"I thought it not many minutes ago, for so the
thing was decided and proclaimed."
"Ah, then you've changed your mind, is that it?"
"Even that. I only thought, then; I know, now."
I felt sarcastical, so I said:
"Oh, sapient servant of the law, condescend to tell

what you know."

us, then,
377
 MARK TWAIN
"That ye will all be hanged to-day, at mid-after-
noon! Oho! that shot hit home! Lean upon me."
The fact is I did need to lean upon somebody. My
knights couldn't arrive in time. They would be as
much as three hours too late. Nothing in the world
could save the King of England; nor me, which was
more important. More important, not merely to me,
—
but to the nation the only nation on earth standing
ready to blossom into civilization. I was sick. I said
no more, there wasn't anything to say. I knew what
the man meant that, if the missing slave was found,
;

the postponement would be revoked, the execution

take place to-day. Well, the missing slave was found.

378
 CHAPTER XXXVIII
SIR LAUNCELOT AND KNIGHTS TO THE RESCUE

EARING
N four in the afternoon.
just outside the walls of
fortable, superb day, with a
London.
The scene was
A cool, com-
brilliant sun; the kind
of day to make one want to live, not die. The
multitude was prodigious and far-reaching; and yet
we fifteen poor devils hadn't a friend in it. There
was something painful in that thought, look at it
how you might. There we sat, on our taU scaffold,
the butt of the hate and mockery of all those enemies.
We were being made a holiday spectacle. They had
built a sort of grand -stand for the nobility and
gentry, and these were there in full force, with their
ladies. We recognized a good many of them.
The crowd got a brief and unexpected dash of
diversion out of the king. The moment we were
freed of our bonds he sprang up, in his fantastic
rags, with face bruised out of all recognition, and
proclaimed himself Arthur, King of Britain, and de-
notmced the awful penalties of treason upon every
soul there present if hair of his sacred head were
touched. It startled and surprised him to hear them
break into a vast roar of laughter. It wounded his
dignity, and he locked himself up in silence, then,
although the crowd begged him to go on, and
379
 "

MARK TWAIN
tried to provoke him to it by catcalls, jeers, and
shouts of:
"Let him speak! The king! The king! his hum-
ble subjects hunger and thirst for words of wisdom
out of the mouth of their master his Serene and
Sacred Raggedness!"
But it went for nothing. He put on all his
majesty and sat under this rain of contempt and
insult unmoved. He certainly was great in his way.
Absently, I had taken off my white bandage and
wound it about my right arm. When the crowd
noticed this, they began upon me. They said:
'
' Doubtless this sailor-man is his minister —observe
his costly badge of office!"
I let them go on tintil they got tired, and then
I said:
"Yes, I am his minister. The Boss; and to-morrow
you hear that from Camelot which
will
—
I got no further. They drowned me out with
joyous derision. But presently there was silence;
for the sheriffs of London, in their ofificial robes, with
their subordinates, began to make a stir which indi-
cated that business was about to begin. In the hush
which followed, our crime was recited, the death-
warrant read, then everybody uncovered while a
priest uttered a prayer.
Then a was blindfolded; the hangman vm-
slave
slung his rope. There lay the smooth road below
us, we upon one side of it, the banked multitude
—
walling its other side a good clear road, and kept
free by the police —
^how good it would be to see
my five hundred horsemen come tearing down it!
380
 !

A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
But no, it was out of the possibilities. I followed its
—
receding thread out into the distance not a horse-
man on it, or sign of one.
There was a jerk, and the slave hung dangling;
dangling and hideously squirming, for his limbs
were not tied.
A second rope was unslung, in a moment another
slave was dangling.
In a minute a third slave was struggling in the air.
It was dreadful. I turned away my head a mo-
ment, and when I turned back I missed the king!
They were blindfolding him! I was paralyzed; I
couldn't move, I was choking, my tongue was petri-
fied. They finished blindfolding him, they led him
under the rope. I cotddn't shake off that clinging
impotence. But when I saw them put the noose
around his neck, then everything let go in me and
I made a spring to the rescue —
and as I made it I
—
shot one more glance abroad ^by George! here they
—
came, a-tilting! ^five himdred mailed and belted
knights on bicycles
The grandest sight that ever was seen. Lord, how
the plumes streamed, how sun flamed and
the
flashed from the endless procession of webby wheels f
I waved my right arm as Launcelot swept in ^he —
—
recognized my rag I tore away noose and bandage,
and shouted:
"On your knees, every rascal of you, and salute
the king! Who fails shall sup in hell to-night!"
I always use that high style when I'm climaxing
an effect. Well, it was noble to see Launcelot and
the boys swarm up onto that scaffold and heave
381
 MARK TWAIN
sheriflEs and such overboard. And
was fine to see
it

that astonished multitude go down on their knees

and beg their lives of the king they had just been
deriding and insulting. And as he stood apart there,
receiving this homage in rags, I thought to myself,
well, really there is something peculiarly grand about
the gait and bearing of a king, after aU.
I was immensely satisfied. Take the whole situa-
tion all around, it was one of the gaudiest effects I
ever instigated.
And presently up comes Clarence, his own self!

and winks, and modemly:

says, very
"Good deal of a surprise, wasn't it? I knew
you'd like it. I'vehad the boys practising this long
time, privately; and just hungry for a chance to
show off."

382
 CHAPTER XXXIX
THE Yankee's fight with the knights

HOME Camelot. A morning

again, at or two later
found the paper, damp from the
I press, by my
plate at the breakfast-table. I turned to the ad-

vertising columns, knowing I should find something

of personal interest to me there. It was this
•

OE VXR IE RCl.

ypuyw that the gieat lord and illus-

tiious KniSht, .SIR SAGBLAMOR LB

DESI-sOUS naving condescended to

me^ tLe King-s Ministei, Hank Mor-

gan, the which is sumamed The Boss,

for satisfgction of ofience anciently given,

these will, engage in the lists b^

Camelol about the fourth hour of the
monJng of the nzteenth day of this

next succeeding montb. Ihe bsttle

will be & 1 outrance, sith the said offence

was of a deadly sort, admitllng of no

OomPuatioD.
DB FAS I£yfX.

383
 :!

MARK TWAIN
Clarence's editorial reference to this affair was to
this effect

thdrew, It will be observed, by a glTnce at our our disappcnotaC

work maintained advertising colunms, that the commu- promptly and-^
there since, soon nity is to be favored Jftith a treat of un- two of their fdc
lastic have witq usual interest in the tournament line, erlain, and otti*

oked interest The n ames ot the artists are warrant of ers haveJaUeacU
upon the eajn- good enterramment. The box-office spoken, yon b
*e been id ^
d will be open at noon of the 13th; ad- fumisned for

hj the an^^ns, mission 3 cents, reserved seats 5; pro- their use, m

,
cut out cb^^y by ceeds to go to the hospital fund j^e make and
jterian Bg/i\, and royal pair and all tile Court will be pres- the >pnd
C some )^Bng men ent. With these exceptions, and the letters

of our under the press and the clergy, the free list is strict- 0} intiod
\ gnidance of ths ly suspended. Parties are hereby warn- duction whi
4 M aid in a^nown ed against buying tickets of ^leculators; they are nnin
be great enterprise they vrill not be good at the door, ing friends to m
oi making pure; Everybody knows and likes The Boss, ried, and leave tW
esen) everybody knows and likes Sir Sag.; thotjkind words wv
OMTement had its come, let us give tne lads a good send- which you my joy-
ot^in in pieven oH. ReMember, tne proceeds go to a hind; and it is s
buis ever been a great and free charity, and coe whose home matter of k
don* id our broad begevolence stretches out its help- it is our durp
on the f^M- ing hand, warm with the blood of a lov- direct them to
Other one ing heart, to all that su}}er, i^aidless of now under the
ospel, race, creed, condition or color —the g fields as are

bjr- only charity yet established in tne earth Tiaese^ounS sMi

e which has no politico-religious stop- are warm-hea<*cd(
The cock on its compassion, but says Here azpri, regions but
dsvaame flows Jthe stream, let all come and not to " build a
Co lenresent drink I
x"'" o«'. sJl hands 1 fetcf along ond,', andth*
lied thirty of your dou3hnuts
and your gum- drops der instruct!
>Meds and hear- and have a good time. Pie for sale on ons of our
%faich,^ears age the groun(&, and rocks to crack it with; another man
—
*"fesgn was osgan- also ciRcus-lemonade three drops of founhati's ob.^
itig, the missions, lime juice to a barrel of water. ociety, which
«*o that both had N. B. This is ike first teurmamttif They go un-
to withdraw' and under the new law, whidh allaaf each say tqat "inr
much to their combatant to use any weapon he ma fpre- ionaries to mon
grief, ftr. You want to make a note of '^Bqijsay sanding mm
384
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
Up to the day set, there was no talk in all Britain
of anything but this combat. All other topics sank
into insignificance and passed out of men's thoughts
and interest. It was not because a tournament was
a great matter; it was not because Sir Sagramor had
found the Holy Grail, for he had not, but had
failed; it was not because the second (official) per-
sonage in the kingdom was one of the duelists; no,
all these features were commonplace. Yet there
was abundant reason for the extraordinary interest
which this coming fight was creating. It was bom
of the fact that all the nation knew that this was
not to be a duel between mere men, so to speak, but
a duel between two mighty magicians; a duel not of
muscle but of mind, not of human skill but of super-
htrnian art and craft; a final struggle for supremacy
between the two master enchanters of the age. It
was realized that the most prodigious achievements
of the most renowned knights cotdd not be worthy
of comparison with a spectacle like this; they could
be but child's play, contrasted with this mysterious
and awful battle of the gods. Yes, all the world
knew it was going to be in reality a duel between
Merlin and me, a measuring of his magic powers
against mine. It was known that Merlin had been
busy whole days and nights together, imbuing Sir
Sagramor's arms and armor with supernal powers of
offense and defense, and that he had procured for him
from the spirits of the air a fleecy veil which would
render the wearer invisible to his antagonist while
still visible to other men. Against Sir Sagramor, so
weaponed and protected, a thousand knights could
385
 MARK TWAIN
accomplish nothing; against him no known enchant>
ments could prevail. These facts were sure; regard-
ing them there was no doubt, no reason for doubt.
There was but one question: might there be still
other enchantments, unknown to Merlin, which
cotdd render Sir Sagramor's veil transparent to me,
and make his enchanted mail vulnerable to my
weapons? This was the one thing to be decided in
the lists. Until then the world must remain in
suspense.
So the world thought there was a vast matter at
stake here, and the world was right, but it was not

the one they had in their minds. No, a far vaster

one was upon the cast of this die the life of knight-
:

errantry. I was a champion, it was true, but not the

champion of the frivolous black arts, I was the
champion of hard unsentimental common sense and
reason. I was entering the lists to either destroy
knight-errantry or be its victim.
Vast as the show-grounds were, there were no
vacant spaces in them outside of the lists, at ten
o'clock on the morning of the i6th. The mammoth
grand-stand was clothed in flags, streamers, and rich
tapestries, and packed with several acres of smaU-fry
tributary kings, their suites, and the British aris-
tocracy; with our own royal gang in the chief place,
and each and every individual a flashing prism of
—
gaudy silks and velvets ^well, I never saw anything
to begin with it but a fight between an Upper Mis-
sissippi sunset and the aurora borealis. The huge
camp of beflagged and gay-colored tents at one end
of the lists, with a stiff-standing sentinel at every
386
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
door and a shining shield hanging by him. for chal-
lenge, was another fine sight. You see, every knight
was there who had any ambition or any caste feel-
ing; for my feeling toward their order was not much
of a secret, and so here was their chance. If I won
my fight with Sir Sagramor, others would have
the right to call me out as long as I might be willing
to respond.
Down at our end there were but two tents; one for
me, and another for my servants. At the appointed
hour the king made a sign, and the heralds, in their
tabards, appeared and made proclamation, naming
the combatants and stating the cause of quarrel.
There was a pause, then a ringing bugle-blast, which
was the signal for us to come forth. All the multi-
tude caught their breath, and an eager curiosity
flashed into every face.
Out from his tent rode great Sir Sagramor, an
imposing tower of iron, stately and rigid, his huge
spear standing upright in its socket and grasped in
his strong hand, his grand horse's face and breast
cased in steel, his body clothed in rich trappings that
—
almost dragged the ground oh, a most noble pic-
ture. A great shout went up, of welcome and
admiration.
And then out came. But I didn't get any
I
shout. There was a wondering and eloquent silence
for a moment, then a great wave of laughter began
to sweep_along that human sea, but a warning bugle-
blast cut its career short. I was in the simplest and
comfortablest of gymnast costumes ^flesh-colored —
tights from neck to heel, with blue silk puffings about
387
 " :

MARK TWAIN
my loins,and bareheaded. My horse was not above
medium size, but he was alert, slender-limbed,
muscled with watch-springs, and just a greyhound to
go. He was a beauty, glossy as silk, and naked as
he was when he was bom, except for bridle and
ranger-saddle.
The iron tower and the gorgeous bed-quilt came
cumbrously but gracefully pirouetting down the
lists, and we tripped lightly up to meet them. We
halted; the tower saluted, I responded; then we
wheeled and rode side by side to the grand-stand
and faced our king and queen, to whom we made
obeisance. The queen exclaimed:
"Alack, Sir Boss, wilt fight naked, and without
lance or sword or
—
But the king checked her and made her understand,
with a polite phrase or two, that this was none of her
business. The bugles rang again; and we separated
and rode to the ends of the lists, and took position.
Now old Merlin stepped into view and cast a dainty
web of gossamer threads over Sir Sagramor which
turned him into Hamlet's ghost; the king made a
sign, the bugles blew. Sir Sagramor laid his great
lance in rest, and the next moment here he came
thundering down the course with his veil flying out
behind, and I went whistling through the air like an
arrow to meet him —cocking my ear the while, as if

noting the invisible knight's position and progress by

hearing, not sight. A chorus of encouraging shouts
burst out for him, and one brave voice flung out a
heartening word for me—^said
"Go it, slim Jim'"
388
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
Itwas an even bet that Clarence had procured that
favor for —
me and furnished the language, too. When
that formidable lance-point was within a yard and a
half of my breast I twitched my horse aside without
an effort, and the big knight swept by, scoring a
blank. I got plenty of applause that time. We
turned, braced up, and down we came again. An-
other blank for the knight, a roar of applause for me.
This same thing was repeated once more; and it
fetched such a whirlwind of applause that Sir Sagra-
mor lost his temper, and at once changed his tactics
and set himself the task of chasing me down. Why,
he hadn't any show in the world at that; it was a
game of tag, with all the advantage on my side; I
whirled out of his path with ease whenever I chose,
and once I slapped him on the back as I went to the
rear. Finally I took the chase into my own hands;
and after that, turn, or twist, or do what he would, he
was never able to get behind me again; he found
himself always in front at the end of his mauoeuver.
So he gave up that business and retired to his end of
the lists. His temper was clear gone now, and he
forgot himself and flung an insult at me which dis-
posed of mine. I slipped my lasso from the horn of
my saddle, and grasped the coil in my right hand.
This time you should have seen him come it was a
!
—
business trip, sure; by his gait there was blood in
his eye. I was sitting my horse at ease, and swinging
the great loop of my lasso in wide circles about my
head; the moment he was under way, I started for
him; when the space between us had narrowed to
forty feet, I sent the snaky spirals of the rope
.?89
 MARK TWAIN
a-cleaving through the then darted aside and
air,

faced about and brought my

trained animal to a
halt with all his feet braced under him for a surge.
The next moment the rope sprang taut and yanked
Sir Sagramor out of the saddle! Great Scott, but
there was a sensation!
Unquestionably, the popular thing in this world is
novelty. These people had never seen anything of
that cowboy business before, and it carried them
clear off their feet with delight. From all aroimd and
everywhere, the shout went up:
"Encore! encore!"
I wondered where they got the word, but there was
no time to cipher on philological matters, because the
whole knight-errantry hive was just humming now,
and my prospect for trade couldn't have been better.
The moment my lasso was released and Sir Sagramor
had been assisted to his tent, I hauled in the slack,
took my station and began to swing my loop arotind
my head again. I was sure to have use for it as soon
as they could elect a successor for Sir Sagramor, and
that couldn't take long where there were so many
hungry candidates. Indeed, they elected one straight
o& — Sir Hervis de Revel.
Bzz! Here he came, Hke a house afire; I dodged:
he passed like a flash, with my horse-hair coils settling
around his neck; a second or so later, fst! his saddle
was empty.
I got another encore; and another, and another,
and still another. When I had snaked five men out,
things began to look serious to the ironclads, and they
stopped and consulted together. As a result, they
390
 !

A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
decided that was time to waive etiquette and send
it

their greatestand best against me. To the astonish-

ment of that little world, I lassoed Sir Lamorai de
Galis, and after him Sir Galahad. So you see there
was simply nothing to be done now, but play theii
—
right bower bring out the superbest of the superb,
the mightiest of the mighty, the great Sir Latmcelot
himself
A proud moment for me? I should think so.
Yonder was Arthur, King of Britain; yonder was
Guenever; yes, and whole tribes of little provincial
kings and kinglets; and in the tented camp yonder,
renowned knights from many lands and likewise the ;

selectest body known to chivalry, the Knights of the

Table Round, the most illustrious in Christendom;
and biggest fact of all, the very sun of their shining
system was yonder couching his lance, the focal point
of forty thousand adoring eyes; and all by myself,
here was I laying for him. Across my mind flitted
the dear image of a certain hello-girl of West Hart-
ford, and I wished she could see me now. In that
moment, down came the Invincible, with the rush of
—
a whirlwind ^the courtly world rose to its feet and
—
bent forward ^the fateftil coils went circling through
the air, and before you could wink I was towing Sir
Launcelot across the field on his back, and kissing my
hand to the storm of waving kerchiefs and the thun-
der-crash of applause that greeted me!
Said I to myself, as I coiled my lariat and hung
it on my saddle-horn, and sat there drunk with

glory, "The victory is perfect — ^no other will venture

me—knight-errantry
s/

against is dead.
'

' Now imagine

391
 : :

MARK TWAIN
my astonishment—^and everybody else's, too — ^to

hear the pectdiar bugle-call which announces that

another competitor is about to enter the lists There !

was a mystery here; I cotddn't account for this

thing. Next, I noticed Merlin gliding away from me;
and then I noticed that my lasso was gone The old !

sleight-of-hand expert had stolen it, sure, and slipped

it under his robe.
The bugle blew again. I looked, and down came
Sagramor riding again, with brushed off and
his dust
his veil nicely rearranged. to meet him,
I trotted up
and pretended to find him by the sound of his horse's
hoofs. He said
"Thou'rt quick of ear, but it will not save thee
from this!" and he touched the hilt of his great
sword. "An ye are not able to see it, because of the
influence of the veil, know that it is no cumbrous
—
lance, but a sword and I ween ye will not be able
to avoid it."
His visor was up there was death in his smile. I
;

should never be able to dodge his sword, that was

plain. Somebody was going to die this tirae. If he
got the drop on me, I could name the corpse. We
rode forward together, and saluted the royalties.
This time the king was disturbed. He said:
"Where is thy strange weapon?"
"It is stolen, sire."

"Hast another at hand?"

"No, sire, I brought only the one."
Then Merlin mixed in
"He brought but the one because there was but the
one to bring. There exists none other but that one.
392
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
It belongeth to the king of the Demons of the Sea.
This man is a pretender, and ignorant; else he had
known that that weapon can be used in but eight
bouts only, and then it vanisheth away to its home
under the sea."
"Then is he weaponless," said the king. "Sit
Sagramor, ye will grant him leave to borrow."
"And I will lend!" said Sir Launcelot, limping
up. "He is as brave a knight of his hands as any
that be on live, and he shall have mine."
He put his hand on his sword to draw it, but Sir
Sagramor said:
"Stay, it may not be. He shall fight with his
own weapons ; it was them and
his privilege to choose
bring them. If he hason his head be it,"
erred,
"Knight!" said the king. "Thou'rt overwrought
with passion; it disorders thy mind. Wouldst kill a
naked man?"
"An he do it, he shall answer it to me," said Sir
Launcelot.
"I will answer it to any he that desireth!" retorted
Sir Sagramor hotly.
Merlin broke in, rubbing his hands and smiling
his low-downest smile of malicious gratification:
"'Tis well said, right well said! And 'tis enough
of parleying, let my lord the king deliver the battle
signal."
The king had to yield. The bugle made proclama-
tion, and we turned apart and rode to our stations.
There we stood, a hundred yards apart, facing each
other, rigid and motionless, like horsed statues. And
so we '•emained, in a soundless hush, as much as a
393
 :

MARK TWAIN
fullminute, everybody gazing, nobody stirring. It
seemed as if the king could not take heart to give

the signal. But at last he lifted his hand, the clear

note of a bugle followed. Sir Sagramor's long blade
described a flashing curve in the air, and it was
superb to see him come. I sat still. On he came.
I did not move. People got so excited that they
shouted to me
"Fly, fly! Save thyself! This is murther!"
I never budged so much as an inch till that
thundering apparition had got within fifteen paces
of me; then I snatched a dragoon revolver out of
my holster, there was a flash and a roar, and the
revolver was back in the holster before anybody
could tell what had happened.
Here was a riderless horse plunging by, and
yonder lay Sir Sagramor, stone dead.
The people that ran to him were stricken dumb
to find that the life was actually gone out of the man
and no reason for it visible, no hurt upon his body,
nothing like a wound. There was a hole through
the breast of his chain-mail, but they attached no
importance to a little thing like that; and as a
buUet-wound there produces but little blood, none
came in sight because of the clothing and swaddlings
under the armor. The body was dragged over to
let the king and the swells look down upon it. They
were stupefied with astonishment naturally. I was
requested to come and explain the miracle. But I

remained in my tracks, like a statue, and said:

"If a command, I wiU come, but my lord
it is

the king knows that I am where the laws of combat

394
 —
A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
reqtiire me to remain while any desire to come
against me."
I waited. Nobody challenged. Then I said:
"If there are any who doubt that this field is,

well and fairly won, I do not wait for them to

challenge me, I challenge them."
"It is a gallant offer," said the king, "and well
beseems you. Whom will you name first?"
"I name none, I challenge aU! Here I stand, and
dare the chivalry of England to come against me
not by individuals, but in mass!"
"What!" shouted a score of knights.
"You have heard the challenge. Take it, or I
proclaim you recreant knights and vanquished,
every one!"
It was a "bluff" you know. At such a time it is
sound judgment to put on a bold face and play your
hand for a hundred times what it is worth; forty-nine
times out of fifty nobody dares to "call," and you
rake in the chips. But just this once ^weU, things —
looked squally! In just no time, five hundred
knights were scrambling into their saddles, and
before you could wink a widely scattering drove were
under way and clattering down upon me. I snatched
both revolvers from the holsters and began to
measure distances and calculate chances.
Bang! One saddle empty. Bang! another one.
—
Bang ^bang, and I bagged two. Well, it was nip
and tuck with us, and I knew it. If I spent the
eleventh shot without convincing these people, the
twelfth man would kill me, sure. And so I never did
feel so happy as I did when my ninth downed its

395
 MARK TWAIN
man and I detected the wavering in the crowd
which is premonitory of panic. An instant lost now
could knock out my last chance. But I didn't lose
it. both revolvers and pointed them ^the
I raised —
halted host stood their ground just about one good
square moment, then broke and fled.
The day was mine. Knight-errantry was a
doomed institution. The march of civilization was
begun. How did I feel? Ah, you never could
imagine it.

And Brer Merlin? His stock was fiat again.

Somehow, every time the magic of fol-de-rol tried
conclusions with the magic of science, the magic of
fol-de-rol got left.

396
 CHAPTER XL
THREE YEARS LATER

WHEN I broke the back of knight-errantry

that time, I no longer felt obliged to work in
secret. So, the very next day I exposed my hidden
schools, my mines, and my vast system of clandes-
tine factories and workshops to an astonished world.
That is to say, I exposed the nineteenth century to
the inspection of the sixth.
Well, it is always a good plan to follow up an
advantage promptly. The knights were tempo-
rarily down, but if I would keep them so I must just
—
simply paralyze them nothing short of that would
answer. You see, I was "bluffing" that last time
in the field; it would be natural for them to work
around to that conclusion, if I gave them a chance.
So I must not give them time; and I didn't.
I renewed my challenge, engraved it on brass,
posted it up where any priest could read it to them,,
and also kept it standing in the advertising colimma
of the paper.
I not only renewed it, but added to its propor-
tions. I said, name the day, and I would take fifty

assistants and stand up against the massed chivalry

of the whole earth and destroy it.
I was not bluffing this time. I meant what I
397
 MARK TWAIN
said; I could promised. There wasn't any-
do what I
way to misTonderstand the language of that chal-
lenge. Even the dullest of the chivalry perceived
that this was a plain case of "put up, or shut up."
They were wise and did the latter. In all the next
three years they gave me no trouble worth men-
tioning.
Consider the three years sped. Now look around
on England. A happy and prosperous coimtry, and
strangely altered. Schools everywhere, and several
colleges;a number of pretty good newspapers.
Even authorship was taking a start Sir Dinadan the
;

Humorist was first in the field, with a volxmie of

gray-headed jokes which I had been familiar with
during thirteen centuries. If he had left out that
old rancid one about the lectvirer I wouldn't have
said anything; but I couldn't stand that one. I
suppressed the book and hanged the author.
Slavery was dead and gone; all men were equal
before the law; taxation had been equalized. The
telegraph, the telephone, the phonograph, the type-
writer, the sewing-machine, and all the thousand
willing and handy servants of steam and electricity
were working their way into favor. We had a
steamboat or two on the Thames, we had steam
war-ships, and the beginnings of a steam commercial
marine I was getting ready to send out an expedition
;

to discover America.
We were building several lines of railway, and our
line from Camelot to London was already finished
and in operation.I was shrewd enough to make all
ofiSce-i connected with the passenger service places
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A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
of high and distinguished honor. My idea was to
attract the chivahy and nobility, and make them
useful and keep them out of mischief. The plan
worked very well, the competition for the places
was hot. The conductor of the 4.33 express was a
duke there wasn't a passenger conductor on the line
;

below the degree of earl. They were good men,

every one, but they had two defects which I couldn't
cure, and so had to wink at they wouldn't lay aside
:

their armor, and they would "knock down" fare

I mean rob the company.
There was hardly a knight in all the land who
wasn't in some useful employment. They were '

going from end to end of the country in all manner

of useful missionary capacities; their penchant for
wandering, and their experience in it, made them
altogether the most eflfective spreaders of civilization ,/

we had. They went clothed in steel and equipped

with sword and lance and battle-ax, and if they
couldn't persuade a person to try a sewing-machine
on the instalment plan, or a melodeon, or a barbed-
wire fence, or a prohibition journal, or any of the
other thousand and one things they canvassed for,
they removed him and passed on.
I was very happy. Things were working steadily
toward a secretly longed-for point. You see, I had
two schemes in my head which were the vastest of
all my projects. The one was to overthrow the
Catholic Church and set up the Protestant faith on
its ruins
—
^not as an Established Church, but a go-as-
you-please one; and the other project was to get a
decree issued by and by, commanding that upon
399
 MARK TWAIN
Arthur's death unHmited sxiffrage should be intro^

duced, and given to men and women alike —at any

rate to all men, wise or unwise, and to all mothers
who at middle age should be fotmd to know nearly
as much as their sons at twenty-one. Arthur was
good for thirty years yet, he being about my own
age —that is to say, forty —and I believed that in that
time I could easily have the active part of the popula-
tion of that day ready and eager for an event which
should be the first of its kind in the history of the
—
world a rounded and complete governmental revolu-
tion without bloodshed. The result to be a republic.
Well, I may as well confess, though I do feel ashamed
when I think of it: I was beginning to have a base
hankering to be its first president myself. Yes,
there was more or less human nature in me I found ;

that out.
Clarence was with me as concerned the revolution,
but in a modified way. His idea was a republic, with-
out privileged orders, but with a hereditary royal
family at the head of it instead of an elective chief
magistrate. He believed that no nation that had
ever known the joy of worshiping a royal family could
ever be robbed of it and not fade away and die of
melancholy. I urged that kings were dangerous. He
said, then have cats. He was sure that a royal family
of cats would answer every purpose. They would be
as useful as any other royal family, they would know
as much, they would have the same virtues and the
same same disposition to get up shin-
treacheries, the
would be laughably
dies with other royal cats, they
vain and absurd and never know it, they would
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A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
be wholly inexpensive; finally, they would have as
sound a divine right as any other royal house, and
"Tom VII., or Tom XI., or Tom XIV. by the grace
of God King," would sound as well as it would when
applied to the ordinary royal tom-cat with tights on.
"And as a rule," said he, in his neat modem English,
"the character of these cats would be considerably
above the character of the average king, and this
would be an immense moral advantage to the nation,
for the reason that a nation always models its morals
after its monarch's. The worship of royalty being
founded in imreason, these graceful and harmless cats
woiild easily become as sacred as any other royalties,
and indeed more so, because it would presently be
noticed that they hanged nobody, beheaded nobody,
imprisoned nobody, inflicted no cruelties or injustices
of any sort, and so must be worthy of a deeper love
and reverence than the customary human king, and
would certainly get it. The eyes of the whole harried
world would soon be fixed upon this humane and
gentle system, and royal butchers would presently
begin to disappear; their subjects would fill the
vacancies with catlings from our own royal house we ;

should become a factory; we should supply the

thrones of the world; within forty years all Europe
wovdd be governed by cats, and we shoxild furnish the
cats. The reign of universal peace would begin then,
to end no more forever. . Me-e-e-yow-ow-ow-ow
. .
—
fzt!
—wow!"
Hang him, I supposed he was in earnest, and was
beginning to be persuaded by him, until he exploded
that cat-howl and startled me almost out of my
401
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MARK TWAIN
clothes. But he never could be in earnest. He didn't
know what it was. He had pictiired a distinct and
perfectly rational and feasible improvement upon
constitutional monarchy, but he was too feather-
headed to know it, or care anything about it, either.
I was going to give him a scolding, but Sandy came
flying in at that moment, wild with terror, and so
choked with sobs that for a minute she could not get
her voice. I ran and took her in my arms, and
lavished caresses upon her and said, beseechingly:
"Speak, darUng, speak! What is it?"
Her head fell Ump upon my bosom, and she gasped,
almost inaudibly:
'
' Hello-Central !"
"Quick!" I shouted to Clarence; "telephone the
king'shomeopath to come!"
In two minutes I was kneeling by the child's crib,
and Sandy was despatching servants here, there, and
everywhere, all over the palace. I took in the situa-

tion almost at a glance —^membranous croup ! I bent

down and whispered
"Wake up, sweetheart! Hello-Central!"
She opened her soft eyes langtiidly, and made out
to say
"Papa."
That was a comfort. She was far from dead yet.

I sent for preparations of sulphur, I rousted out the

croup-kettle myself; for I don't sit down and wait
for doctors when Sandy or the child is sick. I knew
how to nurse both of them, and had had experience.
This little chap had lived in my arms a good part of
its small life, and often I could soothe away its trou-
403
 —
A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
bles and get it to laugh through the tear-dews on its
eyelashes when even its mother couldn't.
Sir Launcelot, in his richest armor, came striding
along the great hall now on his way to the stock-
board he was president of the stock-board, and occu-
;

pied the Siege Perilous, which he had bought of Sir

Galahad for the stock-board consisted of the Knights
;

of the Round Table, and they used the Round Table

for business purposes now. were worth
Seats at it

well, you would never it is no

believe the figure, so
use to state it. Sir Launcelot was a bear, and he had
put up a comer in one of the new Unes, and was just
getting ready to squeeze the shorts to-day; but what
of that? He was the same old Latincelot, and when
he glanced in as he was passing the door and found
out that his pet was sick, that was enough for him;
bulls and bears might fight it out their own way for
all him, he would come right in here and stand by

little Hello-Central for all he was worth. And that

was what he did. He shied his helmet into the cor-
ner, and in half a minute he had a new wick in the
alcohol lamp and was firing up on the croup-kettle.
By this time Sandy had bmlt a blanket canopy over
the crib, and everything was ready.
Sir Launcelot got up steam, he and I loaded up the
kettle with unslaked Hme and carbolic acid, with a
touch of lactic add added thereto, then filled the
thing up with water and inserted the steam-spout
under the canopy. Everything was shipshape now,
and we sat down on either side of the crib to stand
our watch. Sandy was so grateful and so comforted
that she charged a couple of church-wardens with
403
 MARK TWAIN
willow-bark and sumach-tobacco for us, and told us
to smoke as much as we pleased, it couldn't get under
the canopy, and she was used to smoke, being the
firstlady in the land who had ever seen a cloud
blown. Well, there couldn't be a more contented or
comfortable sight than Sir Launcelot in his noble
armor sitting in gracious serenity at the end of a yard
of snowy church-warden. He was a beautifiil man,
a lovely man, and was just intended to make a wife
—
and children happy. But, of course, Guenever ^how-
ever, it's no use to cry over what's done and can't be
helped.
Well, he stood watch-and-watch with me, right
straight through, for three daysand nights, till the
child was out of danger; then he took her up in his
great arms and kissed her, with his plumes falling
about her golden head, then laid her softly in Sandy's
lap again and took his stately way down the vast
hall, between the ranks of admiring men-at-arms and
menials, and so disappeared. And no instinct warned
me that I should never look upon him again in this
world !Lord, what a world of heartbreak it is.
The doctors said we must take the child away, if
we would coax her back to health and strength again.
And she must have sea-air. So we took a man-of-
war, and a suite of two hundred and sixty persons, and
went cruising about, and after a fortnight of this we
stepped ashore on the French coast, and the doctors
thought it would be a good idea to make something
of a stay there. The little king of that region offered
us his hospitalities, and we were glad to accept. If he
had had as many conveniences as he lacked, we
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 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
should have been plenty comfortable enough even aa ;

it was, we made out very well, in his queer old castle,

by the help of comforts and luxuries from the ship.

At the end of a month I sent the vessel home for
fresh supplies, and for news. We expected her back
in three or four days. She would bring me, along
with other news, the result of a certain experiment
which I had been starting. It was a project of mine
to replace the tournament with something which
might furnish an escape for the extra steam of the
chivalry, keep those bucks entertained and out of
mischief, and at the same time preserve the best
thing in them, which was their hardy spirit of
emulation. I had had a choice band of them in
private training for some time, and the date was
now arriving for their first public effort.
This experiment was baseball. In order to give
the thing vogue from the start, and place it out of
the reach of criticism, I chose my nines by rank, not
capacity. There wasn't a knight in either team
who wasn't a sceptered sovereign. As for material
of this sort, there was a glut of it always around
Arthiur. You couldn't throw a brick in any direction
and not cripple a Idng. Of course, I couldn't get
these people to leave off their armor; they wouldn't
do that when they bathed. They consented to
differentiate the armor so that a body could tell one
team from the other, but that was the most they
would do. So, one of the teams wore chain-mail
ulsters, and the other wore plate armor made of
my new Bessemer steel. Their practice in the field
was the most fantastic thing I ever saw. Being
40s
 MARK TWAiN
ball-proof, they never skipped out of the way, but
stood still and took the result when a Bessemer was
;

at the bat and a ball hit him, it would bound a

hundred and fifty yards sometimes, And when a
man was running, and threw himself on his stomach
to slide to his base, it was
an ironclad coming
like
into port. At first I appointed men of no rank to
act as umpires, but I had to discontinue that.
These people were no easier to please than other
nines. The umpire's first decision was usually his
last; they broke him in two with a bat, and his
friends toted him home on a shutter. When it
was noticed that no umpire ever survived a game,
umpiring got to be unpopular. So I was obliged to
appoint somebody whose rank and lofty position
under the government would protect him.
Here are the names of the nines:
BESSEMERS ULSTERS
King ARTHxnR. Emperor Luciirs.
King Lot of Lothian. King Logris.
King of Northgalis. King Marhalt of Ireland.
King Marsil. King Morganore.
King of Little Britain. King Mark of Cornwall.
King Labor. King Nentres of Garlot.
King Pellam of Listengese. King Meliodas of Liones.
King Bagdemagtjs. King of the Lake.
King Tolleme la Peintes. The Sowdan of Syria.
—
Umpire Clarence.

The first public game would certainly draw fifty

thousand people; and for solid fun would be worth
going around the world to see. Everything would be
favorable ; it was balmy and beautiful spring weather
now, and Nature was all tailored out in her new clothes.
406
 CHAPTER XLI
THE INTERDICT

HOWEVER, my attention was suddenly snatched

from such matters; our child began to lose
ground again, and we had to go to sitting up with
her, her case became so serious. We couldn't bear
to allow anybody to help in this service, so we two
stood watch-and-watch, day in and day out. Ah,
Sandy, what a right heart she had, how simple, and
genuine, and good she was! She was a flawless wife
and mother; and yet I had married her for no
other particular reasons, except that by the customs
of chivalry she was my property until some knight
should win her from me in the field. She had hunted
Britain over for me; had found me at the hanging-
bout outside of London, and had straightway re-
sumed her old place at my side in the placidest way
and as of right. I was a New-Englander, and in
my opinion this sort of partnership would com-
promise her, sooner or later. She couldn't see how,
but I cut argument short and we had a wedding.
Now I didn't know I was drawing a prize, yet that ^

was what I did draw. Within the twelvemonth I

became her worshiper; and ours was the dearest and
perfectest comradeship that ever was. People talk
about beautiful friendships between two persons of
407
 MARK TWAIN
the same sex. What is the best of that sort, as
compared with the friendship of man and wife, where
the best impulses and highest ideals of both are the
same ? There is no place for comparison between the
two friendships; the one is earthly, the other divine.
In my dreams, along at first, I still wandered
thirteen centuries away, and my unsatisfied spirit
went calling and harking all up and down the un-
replying vacancies of a vanished world. Many a
time Sandy heard that imploring cry come from my
lips in my sleep. With a grand magnanimity she
saddled that cry of mine upon our child, conceiving
it to be the name of some lost darling of mine. It
touched me to tears, and it also nearly knocked me
off my feet, too, when she smiled up in my face for
an earned reward, and played her quaint and pretty
surprise upon me:
"The name of one who was dear to thee is here
preserved, here made holy, and the music of it will

abide always in ovu- ears. Now thou'lt kiss me, as

knowing the name I have given the child."
But I didn't know it, all the same. I hadn't an
idea in the world; but would have been cruel to
it

confess it and spoil her pretty game; so I never let

on, but said:
"Yes, I know, sweetheart —
^how dear and good it
is of you, too! But I want to hear these lips of
yours, which are also mine, utter it first —then its

music will be perfect."

Pleased to the marrow, she murmured:
'

' Hello-Central !"

I didn't laugh — I am always thankful for that—^but
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A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
the strain ruptured every cartilage in me, and for
weeks afterward I could hear my bones clack when
I walked. She never found out her mistake. The
firsttime she heard that form of salute used at the
telephone she was surprised, and not pleased; but I
told her I had given order for it that henceforth and
:

forever the telephone must always be invoked with

that reverent formality, in perpetual honor and
remembrance of my lost friend and her small name-
sake. This was not true. But it answered.
Well, diuing two weeks and a half we watched by
the crib, and in our deep solicitude we were uncon-
scious of any world outside of that sick-room. Then
oiu" reward came: the center of the universe turned
the comer and began to mend. Grateful ? It isn't the
term. There isn 7 any term for it. You know that
yourself, if you've watched your child through the
Valley of the Shadow and seen it come back to life
and sweep night out of the earth with one all-
illuminating smile that you could cover with your
liand.
Why, we were back in this world in one instant!
Then we looked the same startled thought into each
other's eyes at the same moment; more than two
weeks gone, and that ship not back yet
In another minute I appeared in the presence of
my train. They had been steeped in troubled
—
bodings all this time their faces showed it. I
called an escort and we galloped five miles to a hill-
top overlooking the sea. Where was my great com-
merce that so lately had made these glistening
expanses populous and beautiful with its white-
4,09
 —
MARK TWAIN
winged flocks? Vanished, every one! Not a sail,

from verge to verge, not a smoke-bank — a dead

^just

and empty solitude, in place of all that brisk and

breezy life.

I went swiftly back, saying not a word to any-

body. I told Sandy this ghastly news. We could
imagine no explanation that would begin to explain.
Had there been an invasion? an earthquake? a
pestilence? Had the nation been swept out of
existence? But guessing was profitless. I must go
— ^at once. I borrowed the king's navy a "ship"
—
no bigger than a steam-launch and was soon ready.
—
The parting ^ah, yes, that was hard. As I was
devouring the child with last kisses, it brisked up
—
and jabbered out its vocabulary! the first time in
more than two weeks, and it made fools of us for
joy. The darling misprontmciations of childhood!
— dear me, there's no music that can touch it; and
how one grieves when it wastes away and dissolves
into correctness, knowing it will never visit his
bereaved ear again. Well, how good it was to be
able to carry that gracious memory away with me!
I approached England the next morning, with the
wide highway of salt-water all to myself. There
were ships in the harbor, at Dover, but they were
naked as to sails, and there was no sign of life about

them. was Sunday; yet at Canterbury the streets

It
were empty; strangest of all, there was not even a
priest in sight, and no stroke of a bell fell upon my
ear. The moumfulness of death was everywhere.
I couldn't tmderstand it. At last, in the further
edge of that town I saw a small fvmeral procession
410
 —
A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
— a family and a few friends following a
^just coflSn
—no priest; a funeral without book, or candle;
bell,
there was a church there close at hand, but they
passed it by weeping, and did not enter it; I glanced

up at the belfry, and there hung the bell, shrouded

in black, and its tongue tied back. Now I knew!
Now I understood the stupendous calamity that had
overtaken England. Invasion? Invasion is a triv-
iality to it. It was the Interdict!
I asked no questions; I didn't need to ask any.
The Church had struck; the thing for me to do was
to get into a disguise, and go warily. One of my
servants gave me a suit of clothes, and when we
were safe beyond the town I put them on, and from
that time I traveled alone; I could not risk the
embarrassment of company.
A miserable journey. A desolate silence every-
where. Even in London itself. Traffic had ceased;
men did not talk or laugh, or go in groups, or even
in couples; they moved aimlessly about, each man
by himself, with his head down, and woe and terror
at his heart. The Tower showed recent war-scars.
Verily, much had been happening.
Of coturse, I meant to take the train for Camelot.
Train! Why, the station was as vacant as a cavern.
I moved on. The journey to Camelot was a repeti-
tion of what I had already seen. The Monday and
the Tuesday differed in no way from the Sunday. I
arrived far in the night. From being the best electric-
lightedtown in the kingdom and the most like a
recumbent sun of anything you ever saw, it was be-
come simply a blot a blot upon darkness ^that is —
4x1
 —
MARK TWAIN
to say, was darker and solider than the rest of the
it

darkness, and so you cotild see it a little better; it

made me feel as if maybe it was symbolical a, sort of
sign that the Church was going to keep the upper
hand now, and snuff out all my beautiful civilization
just like that. I found no life stirring in the somber
streets. I groped my way with a heavy heart. The
vast castle loomed black upon the hilltop, not a spark
visible about it. The drawbridge was down, the
great gate stood wide, I entered without challenge
my own heels making the only sound I heard— ^and

it was sepulchral enough, in those huge vacant courts.

412
 " :

CHAPTER XLII

war!

FOUND Clarence alone in his quarters, drowned

I in melancholy; and in place of the electric light,
he had reinstituted the ancient rag-lamp, and sat
there in a grisly twilight with all curtains drawn tight.
He sprang up and mshed for me eagerly, saying
"Oh, it's worth a billion milrays to look upon a
live person again!"
He knew me as easily as if I hadn't been disguised
at all. Which frightened me; one may easily believe
that.
"Quick, now, tellme the meaning of this fearful
disaster," I said. "How did it come about?"
"Well, if there hadn't been any Queen Guenever,
it wouldn't have come so early; but it would have
come, anyway. It would have come on yotir own
account by and by; by luck, it happened to come on
the queen's."
"And Sir Launcelot's?"
"Just so."
"Give me the details."
"I reckon you will grant that during some years
there has been only one pair of eyes in these king-
doms that has not been looking steadily askance at
the queen and Sir Launcelot
—
413
 —"
MARK TWAIN
King Arthur's."
—"Yes,
and only oneheart that was without suspicion—
'
'

"Yes—the a heart that

king's; capable
isn't of
thinking evil of a friend."
"Well, the king might have gone on, still happy
and unsuspecting, to the end of his days, but for one
—
of your modem improvements the stock-board.
When you left, three miles of the London, Canterbury
and Dover were ready for the rails, and also ready
and ripe for maniptdation in the stock-market. It
was wildcat, and everybody knew it. The stock was
for sale at a give-away. What does Sir Latmcelot do,
but—"
"Yes, I know; he qtiietly picked up nearly all of
it for a song; then he bought about twice as much

more, deliverable upon call; and he was about to

call when I left."
"Very weU, he did call. The boys couldn't de-
liver. Oh, he had them —
and he just settled his grip
and squeezed them. They were laughing in their
sleeves over their smartness in selling stock to him
at fifteen and sixteen and along there that wasn't
worth ten. Well, when they had laughed long enough
on that side of their mouths, they rested up that side
by shifting the laugh to the other side. That was
when they compromised with the Invincible at two
hundred and eighty-three!"
"Good land!"
"He skinned them
alive, and they deserved it
anyway, the whole kingdom rejoiced. Well, among
the flayed were Sir Agravaine and Sir Mordred,
nephews to the king. End of the first act. Act
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 " S " —
A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
second, scene first, an apartment in Carlisle castle,

where the court had gone for a few days' hunting.

Persons present, the whole tribe of the king's
nephews. Mordred and Agravaine pfopose to call
the guileless Arthur's attention to Guenever and Sir
Launcelot. Sir Gawaine, Sir Gareth, and Sir Gaheris
will have nothing to do with it. A dispute ensues,
with loud talk; in the midst of it enter the king.
Mordred and Agravaine spring their devastating tale
upon him. Tableau. A trap is laid for Latmcelot,
by the king's command, and Sir Launcelot walks into
it. He made it sufficiently uncomfortable for the am-
—
bushed witnesses to wit, Mordred, Agravaine, and
twelve knights of lesser rank, for he killed every one
of them but Mordred; but of course that couldn't
straighten matters between Launcelot and the king,
and didn't."
—
"Oh, dear, only one thing could result I see that.
War, and the knights of the realm divided into a
king's party and a Sir Launcelot's party."
—
"Yes that was the way of it. The king sent the
queen to the stake, proposing to purify her with fire.
Launcelot and his knights rescued her, and in doing
it slew certain good old friends of yours and mine

in fact, some of the best we ever had; to wit, Sir

Bellas le Orgulous, Sir Segwarides, Sir Griflet le Fils
de Dieu, Sir Brandiles, Sir Aglovale
—
"Oh, you tear out my heartstrings."
— —
"wait, I'm not done yet Sir Tor, Sir Gauter,
Sir Gillimer—
"The very best man in my subordinate nine.
What a handy right-fielder he was!"
41
 ' "

MARK TWAIN
— "Sir Reynold's three brothers, Sir Damus..
Priamus, Sir Kay the Stranger
— Sir

"My peerless short-stop! I've seen him catch a

daisy-cutter in his teeth. Come, I can't stand this!"
— "Sir Driant, Sir Lambegus, Sir Herminde, Sir
Pertilope, Sir Perimones, and ^whom do you think?"—
"Rush! Goon."
"Sir Gaheris, and Sir Gareth—both!"
"Oh, incredible! Their love for Laimcelot was
'
indestructible.
"Well, it was an accident. They were simply on-
lookers; they were unarmed, and were merely there
to witness the queen's punishment. Sir Launcelot
iSmote down whoever came in the way of his blind
fury, and he killed these without noticing who they
were. Here is an instantaneous photograph one of
our boys got of the battle; it's for sale on every news-
—
stand. There ^the figures nearest the queen are Sir
Launcelot with his sword up, and Sir Gareth gasping
his latest breath. You can catch the agony in the
queen's face through the curUng smoke. It's a rat-
tling battle-picture."
"Indeed, it is. We must take good care of it;

its historical value is incalculable. Go on."

"Well, the rest of the tale is just war, pure and

simple. Launcelot retreated to his town and castle

of Joyous Gard, and gathered there a great following
of knights. The king, with a great host, went there,
and there was desperate fighting during several days,
.and, as a result, all the plain around was paved with
corpses and cast-iron. Then the Church patched up
a peace between Arthur and Launcelot and the queen
416
 "

A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
—
and everybody everybody but Sir Gawaine. He
was bitter about the slaying of his brothers, Gareth
and Gaheris, and would not be appeased. He
notified Launcelot to get him thence, and make swift
preparation, and look to be soon attacked. So
Launcelot sailed to his Duchy of Guienne with his
following, and Gawaine soon followed with an army,
and he beguiled Arthur to go with him. Arthur left
the kingdom in Sir Mordred's hands until you
should return
—
"Ah —a king's customary wisdom!"
"Yes. Sir Mordred once to work
set himself at
to make his kingship permanent. He was
going to
marry Guenever, as a first move; but she fled and
shut herself up in the Tower of London. Mordred
attacked; the Bishop of Canterbury dropped down
3n him with the Interdict. The king returned;
Mordred fought him at Dover, at Canterbury, and
again at Barham Down. Then there was talk of
peace and a composition. Terms, Mordred to have
Cornwall and Kent during Arthur's life, and the
whole kingdom afterward."
"Well, upon my word! My
dream of a republic
to be a dream, and so remain."
"Yes. The two armies lay near Salisbury. Ga-
—
waine Gawaine's head is at Dover Castle, he fell
in the fight there —
Gawaine appeared to Arthur in
a dream, at least his ghost did, and warned him to
refrain from conflict for a month, let the delay cost
what it might. But battle was precipitated by an
accident. Arthur had given order that if a sword
was raised during the consxiltation over the proposed
417
 :

MARK TWAIN
treaty with Mordred, sound the trumpet and fall
on! for he had no confidence in Mordred, Mordred
had given a similar order to his people. Well, bj
and by an adder bit a knight's heel the knight forgot
;

all about the order, and made a slash at the adder

with his sword. Inside of half a minute those two
prodigious hostscame together with a crash! They
butchered away all day. Then the king ^however, —
we have started something fresh since you left our —
paper has."
"No? What is that?"
"War correspondence!"
"Why, that's good."
"Yes, the paper was booming right along, for the
Interdict made no impression, got no grip, while the
war lasted. I had war correspondents with both
armies. I will finish that battle by reading you what
one of the boys says

Then the king looked about him, and then was he ware of all
his hostand of all his good knights were left no more on live but
two knights, that was Sir Lucan de Butlere, and his brother
Sir Bedivere: and they were wounded. Jesu mercy,
full sore
said the king, where are all my
noble knights becomen? Alas
that ever I should see this doleful day. For now, said Arthur,
I am come to mine end. But would to God that I wist where
were that traitor Sir Mordred, that hath caused all this mis-
chief. Then was King Arthur ware where Sir Mordred leaned
upon hissword among a great heap of dead men. Now give
me my spear, said Arthur unto Sir Lucan, for yonder I have
espied the traitor that all this woe hath wrought. Sir, let
him be, said Sir Lucan, for he is unhappy; and if ye pass this
unhappy day, ye shall be right well revenged upon him. Good
lord, remember ye of your night's dream, and what the spirit
of Sir Gawaine told you this night, yet God of his great goodness
hath preserved you hitherto. Therefore, for God's sake, my
418
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
lord, leave off byFor blessed be God ye have won the
this.
field: for here we be
three on live, and with Sir Mordred is none
on live. And if ye leave off now, this wicked day of destiny is
past. Tide me death, betide me life, saith the king, now I see
him yonder alone, he shall never escape mine hands, for at a
better avail shall I never have him. God speed you well, said Sir
Bedivere. Then the king gat his spear in both his hands, and
ran toward Sir Mordred crjring. Traitor, now is thy death day
come. And when Sir Mordred heard Sir Arthur, he ran until
him with his sword drawn in his hand. And then King Arthur
smote Sir Mordred under the shield, with a foin of his spear
throughout the body more than a fathom. And when .Sir Mor-
dred felt that he had his death's wound, he thrust himself, with
the might that he had, up to the butt of King Arthur's spear.
And right so he smote his father Arthur with his sword holden
in both his hands, on the side of the head, that the sword pierced
the helmet and the brain-pan, and therewithal Sir Mordred fell
stark dead to the earth. And the noble Arthur fell in a swoon
to the earth, and there he swooned ofttimes.

"That a good piece of war correspondence,

is

Clarence; you are a first-rate newspaper man.Well

—is the king all right ?" Did he get well ?"
"Poor sovd, no. He is dead."
I was utterly stunned; it had not seemed to me
that any wound could be mortal to him.
"And the queen, Clarence?"
"She is a nun, in Almesbury."
"What changes! and in such a short while. It is
inconceivable. What next, I wonder?"
"I can tell you what next."
"Well?"
"Stake our lives and stand by them!"
"What do you mean by that?"
"The Chtirch is master now. The Interdict in-
cluded you with Mordred; it is not to be removed
419
 " "

MARK TWAIN
while you remain alive. The clans are gathering.
The Church has gathered all the knights that are
left alive, and as soon as you are discovered we shall
have business on our hands."
"Stuff! With our deadly war material;
scientific
with our hosts of trained
—
pSave your breath— haven't sixty
^we faithful left
!"

"What are you saying? Our schools, ovir col-

leges,our vast workshops, our

—
"When those knights come, those establishments
willempty themselves and go over to the enemy.
Did you think you had educated the superstition out
of those people?"
"I certainly did think it."
"Well, then, you may unthink it. They stood
every strain easily —
until the Interdict. Since then,
they merely put on a bold outside at heart they —
are quaking. Make up your mind to it ^when the —
armies come, the mask will fall."
"It's hard news. We are lost. They will turn
our own science against us."2i
"No they won't."
"Why?"
"Because I and a handful of the faithful have
blocked that game. I'll teU you what I've done,
and what moved me to it. Smart as you are, the
Church was smarter. It was the Chtu-ch that sent
—
you cruising through her servants, the doctors."
"Clarence!"
"It is the truth. I know it. Every ofl&cer of your
ship was the Church's picked servant, and so was
every man of the crew."
42 o
 " —
A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
"Oh, come!"
"It is just as I tell you. I did not find out these
things at once, but I found them out finally. Did you
send me verbal information, by the commander of the
ship, to the effect that upon his return to you, with
supplies, you were going to leave Cadiz —
"Cadiz! I haven't been at Cadiz at all!"
— "going to leave Cadiz and cruise in distant seas,
indefinitely, for the health of your family? Did you
send me that word?"
"Of course not. I would have written, wouldn't
I?"
"Naturally. I was troubled and suspicious. When
the commander sailed again I managed to ship a spy
with him. I have never heard of vessel or spy since.
I gave myself two weeks to hear from you in. Then
I resolved to send a ship to Cadiz. There was a
why I didn't."
reason
"What was that?"
"Our navy had suddenly and mysteriously disap-
peared! Also, as suddenly and as mysteriously, the
railway and telegraph and telephone service ceased,
the men all deserted, poles were cut down, the Church
laid a ban upon the electric light! I had to be up
—
and doing and straight off. Your Ufe was safe
nobody in these kingdoms but Merlin would venture
to touch such a magician as you without ten thousand
—
men at his back I had nothing to think of but how
to put preparations in the best trim against your
—
coming. I felt safe myself ^nobody would be anxious
to touch a pet of yours. So this is what I did. From
our various works I selected all the men —^boys I
421
 " "

MARK TWAIN
mean- —whose faithftdness under whatsoever pressure
I coiildswear to, and I called them together secretly
and gave them their instructions. There are fifty-
two of them; none yoimger than fourteen, and none
above seventeen years old."
"Why did you select boys?"
"Because all the others were bom in an atmosphere
of superstition and reared in it. It is in their blood
and bones. We imagined we had educated it out of
them; they thought so, too; the Interdict woke them
up like a thunderclap! It revealed them to them-
selves, and it revealed them to me, too. With boys
it was Such as have been under our tram-
different.
had no acquaintance
ing from seven to ten years have
with the Church's terrors, and it was among these
that I found my fifty-two. As a next move, I paid
a private visit to that old cave of Merlin's ^not
— — the
—
smaU one the big one
"Yes, the one where we secretly established our
first great electric plant when I was projecting a
miracle."
"Just so. And as that miracle hadn't become
necessary then, I thought it might be a good idea to
utilize the plant now. I've provisioned the cave
a siege
— for

"A good idea, a first-rate idea."

"I think so. I placed four of my boys there as a
—
guard ^inside, and out of sight. Nobody was to be
—
hurt ^while outside; but any attempt to enter-
well, we anybody try it! Then I went
said just let
out into the and uncovered and cut the secret
hills
wires which connected your bedroom with the wires
422
 " —
A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
that go to the dynamite deposits under all our
vast factories, mills, workshops, magazines, etc., and
about midnight I and my boys turned out and con-
nected that wire with the cave, and nobody but you
and I suspects where the other end of it goes to. We
laid it tmder ground, of course, and it was all finished
in a couple of hotirs or so. We sha'n't have to leave
our fortress now when we want to blow up our
civilization."
"It was the right move —and the natural one; a
military necessity, in the changed condition of things.
Well, what changes have come! We expected to be
—
besieged in the palace some time or other, but ^how-
ever,go on."
"Next, we built a wire fence."
"Wire fence?"
"Yes. You dropped the hint of it yotirself, two or
three years ago."
—
"Oh, I remember ^the time the Church tried her
strength against us the first time, and presently
thought it wise to wait for a hopefuler season. Well,
how have you arranged the fence?"
"I start twelve immensely strong wires ^naked,—
—
not insulated ^from a big dynamo in the cave-
dynamo with no brushes except a positive and a nega-
tive one
—
"Yes, that's right."
"The wires go out from the cave and fence in a
cirde of level ground a htmdred yards in diameter;
they make twelve independent fences, ten feet apart
—
that is to say, twelve circles within circles and their
ends come into the cave again."
423
 "

MARK TWAIN
"Right; goon."
"The fences are fastened to heavy oaken posts only
three feet apart, and these posts are sunk five feet in

the ground."
"That good and strong."
is

"Yes. Thewires have no ground-connection out-

side of the cave. They go out from the positive brush
of the dynamo; there is a ground-connection through
the negative brush; the other ends of the wire return
to the cave, and each is grotmded independently."
"No-no, that won't do!"
"Why?"
"It's too expensive —
^uses up force for nothing.

You don't want any ground-connection except the

one through the negative brush. The other end of
every wire must be brought back into the cave and
fastened independently, and without any grotmd-con-
nection. Now, then, observe the economy of it. A
cavalry charge hurls itself against the fence; you are
using no power, you are spending no money, for there
is only one ground-connection till those horses come
against the wire; the moment they touch it they
form a connection with the negative brush through
the ground, and drop dead. Don't you see? ^you are —
using no energy until it is needed your lightning is
;

there, and ready, like the load in a gun but it isn't ;

costing you a cent till you touch it off. Oh, yes, the
smgle ground-connection
—
course! I don't know how I overlooked that.
"Of
It'snot only cheaper, but it's more effectual than the
other way, for if wires break or get tangled, no harm
is done."

424
 " " "

A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
"No, especially if we have a telltale in the cave
and disconnect the broken wire. Well, go on. The
GatUngs?"
—
"Yes ^that's arranged. In the center of the innei
circle, on a spacious platform six feet high, I've
grouped a battery of thirteen Gatling guns, and prov
vided plenty of ammunition."
"That's it. They command every approach, and
when the Church's knights arrive, there's going to be
music. The brow of the precipice over the cave—
"I've got a wire fence there, and a Gatling. They
won't drop any rocks down on us."
"Well, and the glass-cylinder dynamite torpe-
does?"
'
That's attended to. It's the prettiest garden that
'

was ever planted. It's a belt forty feet wide, and goes
—
around the outer fence distance between it and the
—
fence one htmdred yards ^kind of neutral ground
that space is. There isn't a single square yard of
that whole belt but is equipped with a torpedo.
We laid them on the surface of the ground, and
sprinkled a layer of sand over them. It's an inno-
cent-looking garden, but you let a man start in to
hoe it once, and you'll see."
"You tested the torpedoes?"
"Well, I was going to, but
—
"But what? Why, it's an immense oversight not
to apply a
—
"Test? Yes, I know; but they're all right; I laid
a few in the public road beyond our line and they've
been tested."
"Oh, that alters the case. Who did it?"
42 s
 :

MARK TWAIN
"A Church committee."
"How kind!"
"Yes. They came to command us to make sub-
mission. You see they didn't really come to test

the torpedoes; that was merely an incident."

"Did the committee make a report?"
"Yes, they made one. You could have heard it

a mile."
"Unanimous?"
"That was the nature of it. After that I put up
some signs, for the protection of future committees,
and we have had no intruders since."
'

Clarence, you've done a world of work, and done

'

it perfectly."
"We had plenty of time for it; there wasn't any
occasion for hurry."
We sat silent awhile, thinking. Then my mind
was made up, and I said
"Yes, everything is ready; everything is ship-
shape, no detail is wanting. I know what to do now."
"So do I; sit down and wait."
"No, sir! rise up and strike!"
"Do you mean it?"
"Yes, indeed! The defensive isn't in my line, and
the o/fensive is. That is, when I hold a fair hand—
two-thirds as good a hand as the enemy. Oh, yes,
we'll rise up and strike; that's our game."
"A htmdred to one you are right. When does the
performance begin?"
"Now! We'll proclaim the Republic."
"Well, that will precipitate things, sure enough!"
"It will make them buzz, I tell you! England
4.26
 — :

A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
willbe a hornets' nest before noon to-morrow, if the
Church's hand hasn't lost its cunning and we —
know it hasn't. Now you write and I'll dictate thus

"PROCLAMATION
"BE IT KNOWN UNTO ALL. Whereas the king ha^^g
died and left no heir, it becomes my duty to continue the execu-
tive authority vested ia me, until a government shall have
been created and set in motion. The monarchy has lapsed, it
no longer exists. By consequence, all political power has re-
verted to its original source, the people of the nation. With
the monarchy, its several adjuncts died also; wherefore there is
no longer a nobiUty, no longer a privileged class, no longer an
Established Church; aU men are become exactly equal; they are
upon one common and reHgion is free. A Republic is
level,
hereby proclaimed, as being the natural estate of a nation whea
other authority has ceased. It is the duty of the British people
to meet together immediately, and by their votes elect repre-
sentatives and deliver into their hands the government."

I signed it "The Boss," and dated it from Merlin's

Cave. Clarence said:
"Why, that tells where we are, and invites them
to call right away."
"That is the idea. We strike — ^by the Proclama-
tion— ^then it's their innings. Now have the thing
set up and printed and posted, right off; that is,
give the order; then, if you've got a couple of bi-
cycles handy at the foot of the hiH, ho for Merlin's
Cave!"
"I shall be ready in ten minutes. What a cyclone
there is going to be to-morrow when this piece of
paper gets to work! It's a pleasant old palace,
. . .

this is; I wonder if we shall ever again ^but never

mind about that."
427
 CHAPTER XLin'
THE BATTLE OP THE SAND-BELT

INfresh,
Merlin's Cave —Clarence and I and fifty-t\»o

bright, well-educated, clean-minded young

British boys. At dawn I sent an order to the fac-
tories and to all our great works to stop operations
and remove all life to a safe distance, as everything
was going to be blown up by secret mines, "and no
telling at what moment —
therefore, vacate at once."
These people knew me, and had confidence in my
word. They would clear out without waiting to part
their hair, and I could take my own time about dat-
ing the explosion. You couldn't hire one of them
to go back dtuing the century, if the explosion was
stUl impending.
We had a week of waiting. It was not duU for

me, because I was writing all the time. During the

first three days, I finished turning my old diary into
this narrative form; it only required a chapter or

so to bring it down to date. The rest of the week I

took up in writing letters to my wife. It was always

my habit to write to Sandy every day, whenever we
were separate, and now I kept up the habit for love
of it, and of her, though I couldn't do anything with
the letters, of course, after I had written them.
But it put in the time, you see, and was almost Uke
428
 —
A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
talking; it was almost as if I was saying, "Sandy, if
you and Hello-Central were here in the cave, instead
of only your photographs, what good times we could
have!" And then, you know, I could imagine the
baby goo-gooing something out in reply, with its
fists in its mouth and itself stretched across its
mother's lap on its back, and she a-laughing and
admiring and worshiping, and now and then tickling
imder the baby's chin to set it cackling, and then
maybe throwing in a word of answer to me herself
—^and so on and so on —
you know, I
^well, don't
could sit my pen, and keep it
there in the cave with
up, that way, by the hour with them. Why, it was
almost like having us all together again.
Ihad spies out every night, of course, to get news.
Every report made things look more and more im-
pressive. Thewere gathering, gathering;
hosts
down all the roads and paths of England the knights
were riding, and priests rode with them, to hearten
these original Crusaders, this being the Church's
war. AU the nobiHties, big and little, were on their
way, and all the gentry. This was all as was ex-
pected. We should thin out this sort of folk to
such a degree that the people would have nothing
to do but just step to the front with their republic
and
Ah, what a donkey I was Toward the end of the
!

week I began to get this large and disenchanting fact

through my head: that the mass of the nation had
swung their caps and shouted for the republic for
about one day, and there an end! The Church, the
nobles, and the gentry then turned one grand, all-
429
 MARK TWAIN
disapproving frown upon them and shriveled them
into sheep From that moment the sheep had begun
—
!

to gather to the fold ^that is to say, the camps and—

offer their valueless lives and their valuable wool to
the "righteous cause." Why, even th^ very men
who had been slaves were in the "righteous
lately
cause," and glorifying it, praying for it, sentimentally
slabbering over it, just like all the other commoners.
Imagine such human muck as this; conceive of this
folly!
Yes, it was now "Death to the Republic!" every-
—
where ^not a dissenting voice. All England was
marching against us! Truly, this was more than I
had bargained for.
I watched my fifty-two boys narrowly; watched
their faces, their walk, their tmconscious attitudes:
for all these are a language —
^a language given us

ptuposely that it may betray us in times of emer-

gency, when we have secrets which we want to keep.
I knew that that thought would keep saying itself
over and over again in their minds and hearts, All
England is marching against tis! and ever more
strenuously imploring attention with each repetition,
ever more sharply realizing itself to their imagina-
tions, until even in their sleep they would find no
rest from it, but hear the vague and flitting creatures
—
of the dreams say, All England all England! is —
marching against you! I knew all this would happen;
I knew that ultimately the pressure would become
so great that it would compel utterance; therefore,
I must be ready with an answer at that time —
an
answer well chosen and tranquilizing.
430
 —
A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
I was right. The time came. They had to speak.
Poor lads, it was pitiftil to see, they were so pale, so
worn, so troubled. At first their spokesman could
hardly find voice or words; but he presently got both.
—
This is what he said and he put it in the neat
modem English taught him in my schools:
"We have tried to forget what we are—^English
boys! We have tried to put reason before senti-
ment, duty before love; otir minds approve, but our
hearts reproach us. While apparently it was only
the nobility, only the gentry, only the twenty-five or
thirty thousand knights left aHve out of the late
wars, we were of one mind, and undisturbed by any
troubling doubt; each and every one of these fifty-
two lads who stand here before you, said, 'They have
— —
chosen ^it is their affair.' But think! ^the matter is
altered all England is marching against us! Oh,
sir, consider!— —
^reflect! ^these people are our people,

they are bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh, we love

—
them do not ask us to destroy our nation!"
Well, it shows the value of looking ahead, and being
ready for a thing when it happens. If I hadn't fore-
seen this thing and been fixed, that boy would have
—
had me! I cotddn't have said a word. But I was
fixed. I said:
"My boys, your hearts are in the right place, you
have thought the worthy thought, you have done the
worthy thing. You are English boys, you will remain
English boys, and you wiU keep that name un-
smirched. Give yourselves no further concern, let
your minds be at peace. Consider this: while all
England is marching against us, who is in the van ?
431
 MARK TWAIN
Who, by commonest rules of war, will march la
the
the front? Answer me."
"The motmted host of mailed knights."
"True. They are thirty thousand strong. Acres
deep they will march. Now, observe none but they :

will ever strike the sand-belt ! Then there will be an

episode! Immediately the civilian multitude
after,
in the rear will retire, to meet business engagements
elsewhere. None but nobles and gentry are knights,
and none but these will remain to dance to otur music
after that episode. It is absolutely true that we shall
have to nobody but these thirty thousand
fight
knights. Now speak, and it shall be as you decide.
Shall we avoid the battle, retire from the field?"
"NO! !
!"

The shout was unanimous and hearty,

— —
"Are you ^are you ^well, afraid of these thirty
thousand knights?"
That ]oke brought out a good laugh, the boys'
troubles vanished away, and they went gaily to their
posts. Ah, they were a darling fifty-two As pretty !

as girls, too.

was ready for the enemy now. Let the approach-

I
ing big day come along-—it would find us on deck.
The big day arrived on time. At dawn the sentry
on watch in the corral came into the cave and re-
ported a moving black mass under the horizon, and
a faint sound which he thought to be military music,
Breakfast was just ready; we sat down and ate it.
This over, I made the boys a little speech, and then
sent out a detail to man the battery, with Clarence
in command of it.

432
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
The sunrose presently and sent its unobstructed
splendors over the land, and we saw a prodigious host
moving slowly toward us, with the steady drift and
aligned front of a wave of the sea. Nearer and nearer
it came, and more and more sublimely imposing
became its aspect yes, all England was there, appar-
;

ently. Soon we could see the innumerable banners

fluttering, and then the sun struck the sea of armor
and set it all afiash. Yes, it was a fine sight I hadn't
;

ever seen anything to beat it.

At last we could make out details. All the front
ranks, no telling how many acres deep, were horse-
—
men ^plumed knights in armor. Suddenly we heard
the blare of trumpets; the slow walk btu-st into a
—
gaUop, and then ^well, it was wonderful to see!
Down swept that vast horse-shoe wave ^it ap- —
—
proached the sand-belt ^my breath stood still;
nearer, nearer — ^the strip of green ttirf beyond the
—
yellow belt grew narrow ^narrower still ^became a—
—
mere ribbon in front of the horses ^then disappeared
under their hoofs. Great Scott! Why, the whole
front of that host shot into the sky with a thtinder-
crash, and became a whirling tempest of rags and
fragments; and along the ground lay a thick wall of
smoke that hid what was left of the multitude from
our sight.
Time for the second step in the plan of campaign!
I touched a button, and shook the bones of England
loose from her spine!
In that explosion all our noble civilization-factories
went up in the air and disappeared from the earth. It
was a pity, but it was necessary. We could not
433
 MARK TWAIN
afford to let the enemy turn our own weapons against
us.
Now ensued one of the dullest quarter-hotirs I had
ever endured. We waited in a silent soUtude in-
closed by our circles of wire, and by a circle of heavy
smoke outside of these. We couldn't see over the
waU of smoke, and we couldn't see through it. But
at last it began to shred away
lazily, and by the end
of another quarter-hour the land was clear and our
curiosity was enabled to satisfy itself. No Uving
creature was in sight ! We now perceived that addi-
tions had been made to our defenses. The dynamite
had dug a ditch more than a htmdred feet wide, all
around us, and cast up an embankment some twenty-
five feet high on both borders of it. As to destruction
of life, it was amazing. Moreover, it was beyond
estimate. Of course, we could not count the dead,
because they did not exist as individuals, but merely
as homogeneous protoplasm, with alloys of iron and
buttons.
No life was in sight, but necessarily there must
have been some wotmded in the rear ranks, who were
carried off the field under cover of the wall of smoke;
there would be sickness among the others ^there —
always is, after an episode like that. But there would
be no reinforcements; this was the last stand of the
chivalry of England; it was all that was left of the
order, after the recent annihilating wars. So I felt
quite safe in believing that the utmost force that
could for the future be brought against us woxild be
but f^mall that is, of knights. I therefore issued a con-
;

gratulatory proclamation to my army in these words:

434
 :

A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
Soldiers, Champions or Human Liberty and Equality:
Your General congratulates you! In the pride of his strength
and the vanity of his renown, an arrogant enemy came against
you. You were ready. The conflict was brief; on your side,
glorious. This mighty victory, having been achieved utterly
without loss, stands without example in history. So long as
the planets shall continue to move in their orbits, the Battle of
THE Sand-Belt will not perish out of the memories of men.
The Boss.

I read it well, and the applause I got was very

gratifying to me. I then wound up with these
remarks
"The war with the English nation, as a nation, is at
an end. The nation has retired from the field and
the war. can be persuaded to return, war
Before it

will have ceased. This campaign is the only one

that is going to be fought. It will be brief the —
briefest in history. Also the most destructive to life,
considered from the standpoint of proportion of
casualties to numbers engaged. We are done with
the nation; henceforth we deal only with the knights.
English knights can be killed, but they cannot be
conquered. We know what is before us. While one
of these men remains alive, our task is not finished,
the war is not ended. We will kill them all." [Loud
and long-continued applause.]
I picketed the great embankments thrown up
around otir lines by the dynamite explosion ^merely —
a lookout of a couple of boys to announce the enemy
when he should appear again.
Next, I sent an engineer and forty men to a point
just beyond our lines on the south, to turn a mountain
brook that was there, and bring it within our lines
43'?
 :

MARK TWAIN
and under our command, arranging it in such a way

that I could make instant use of it in an emergency.

The forty men were divided into two shifts of twenty
each, and were to relieve each other every two
hours. In ten hours the work was accomplished.
It was nightfall now, and I withdrew my pickets.
The one who had had the northern outlook reported
a camp in sight, but visible with the glass only.
He also reported that a few knights had been feeling
their way toward us, and had driven some cattle
across ottr lines, but that the knights themselves had
not come very near. That was what I had been
expecting. They were feeling us, you see; they
wanted to know if we were going to play that red
terror on them again. They would grow bolder in
the night, perhaps. I believed I knew what project
they wotdd attempt, because it was plainly the thing
I would attempt myself if I were in their places and
as ignorant as they were. I mentioned it to Clarence.
"I think you are right," said he; "it is the obvious
thing for them to try."
"Well, then," I said, "if they do it they are
doomed."
"Certainly."
"They won't have the slightest show in the world."
"Of course they won't."
"It's dreadful, Clarence. It seems an awful
pity."
The thing disturbed me so that I couldn't get any
peace of mind for thinking of it and worrying over
it. So, at last, to quiet my conscience, I framed this
message to the knights
43 fi
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
To THE Honorable the Commander of the Insurgent
Chivalry of England: You fight in vain. We know your
—
strength if one may call it by that name. We know that at
the utmost you cannot bring against us above five-and-twenty
thousand knights. Therefore, you have no chance—none
whatever. Reflect: we are well equipped, well fortified, we
number 54. Fifty-four what? Men? No, minds ^the capa- —
blest in the world; a force against which mere animal might
may no more hope to prevail than may the idle waves of the sea
hope to prevail against the granite barriers of England. Be
advised. We ofifer you your lives; for the sake of your families,
do not reject the gift. We offer you this chance, and it is the
last: throw down your arms; surrender unconditionally to the
Republic, and aU will be forgiven.
(Signed) The Boss.

I read it to Clarence, and said I proposed to send

itby a flag of truce. He laughed the sarcastic laugh
he was bom with, and said:
"Somehow it seems impossible for you to ever
fully realize what these nobilities are. Now let us
save a little time and trouble. Consider me the
commander of the knights yonder. Now, then, you
are the flag of truce; approach and deliver me your
message, and I will give you your answer."
I humored the idea. I came forward under an
imaginary guard of the enemy's soldiers, produced
my paper, and read it through. For answer, Clarence
struck the paper out of my hand, pursed up a scom-
ftd lip and said with lofty disdain:
"Dismember me this animal, and return him in
a basket to the base-bom knave who sent him; other
answer have I none!"
How empty is theory in presence of fact And this
!

was and nothing else. It was the thing

just fact,
that would have happened, there was no getting
437
 MARK TWAIN
around that. I tore up the paper and granted my
mistimed sentimentalities a permanent rest.
Then, to business. I tested the electric signals
from the Gatling platform to the cave, and made sure
that they were aU right I tested and retested those
;

—
which commanded the fences ^these were signals
whereby I could break and renew the electric current
In each fence independently of the others at will. I
placed the brook-connection under the guard and
authority of three of my best boys, who would alter-
nate in two-hoiu- watches all night and promptly obey
my signal, if I should have occasion to give it ^three —
revolver-shots in qmck succession. Sentry duty was
discarded for the night, and the corral left empty of
life; I ordered that quiet be maintained in the cave,
and the electric lights turned down to a ghmmer.
As soon as it was good and dark, I shut off the
current from all the fences, and then groped my way
out to the embankment bordering our side of the
great dynamite ditch. I crept to the top of it and
lay there on the slant of the muck to watch. But it
was too dark to see anything. As for sounds, there
were none. The stillness was deathUke. True, there
were the usual night sounds of the cotmtry the —
whir of night birds, the buzzing of insects, the bark-
ing of distant dogs, the meUow lowing of far-off Idne
— but these didn't seem to break the stilhiess, they
only intensified it, and added a gruesome melan-
choly to it into the bargain.
I presently gave up looking, the night shut down
so black, but I kept my ears strained to catch the
least suspicious sound, for I judged I had only to
438
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
wait, and I shouldn't be disappointed. However,
I had to wait a long time. At last I caught what
you may call indistinct glimpses of sound dulled —
metallic sotmd. I pricked up my ears, then, and
held my breath, for this was the sort of thing I had
been waiting for. This soimd thickened, and ap-
—
proached ^from toward the north. Presently, I
—
heard it at my own level the ridge-top of the oppo-
site embankment, a hundred feet or more away.
Then I seemed to see a row of black dots appear along
—
that ridge ^human heads? I couldn't tell; it
mightn't be anything at all; you can't depend on
your eyes when yotir imagination is out of focus.
However, the question was soon settled. I heard
that metallic noise descending into the great ditch.
It augmented fast, it spread all along, and it vm-
mistakably furnished me this fact: an armed host
was taking up its quarters in the ditch. Yes, these
people were arranging a little surprise party for us.
We could expect entertainment about dawn, possibly
earlier.
I groped my way
back to the corral now; I had
seen enough. went to the platform and signaled
I
to turn the current on to the two inner fences.
Then I went into the cave, and found everything
—
satisfactory there ^nobody awake but the worldng-
watch. I woke Clarence and told him the great
ditch was filling up with men, and that I believed aU
the knights were coming for us in a body. It was
my notion that as soon as dawn approached we
could expect the ditch's ambuscaded thousands to
swarm up over the embankment and make an assault,
439
 : : "

MARK TWAIN
and be followed immediately by the rest of their
army.
Clarence said:
"They wiU be wanting to send a scout or two in
the dark to make preliminary observations. Why
not take the lightning ofif the outer fences, and
give them a chance?"
"I've already done it, Clarence. Did you ever
know me to be inhospitable?"
"No, you are a good heart. I want to go and —
"Be a reception committee? I will go, too."
We crossed the corral and lay down together be-
tween the two inside fences. Even the dim light of
the cave had disordered our eyesight somewhat, but
the focus straightway began to regulate itself and
soon was adjusted for present circumstances. We
it

had had to feel oiur way before, but we could make

out to see the fence-posts now. We started a whis-
pered conversation, but suddenly Clarence broke off
and said
"What is that?"
"What is what?"
"That thing yonder."
"What thing—where?"
"There beyond you a little piece a dark some- —
— —
thing a dull shape of some kind against the second
fence."
I gazed and he gazed. I said
"Could it be a man, Clarence?"
"No, I think not. If you notice, it looks a lit—
—
why, it is a man! ^leaning on the fence."
"I certainly believe it is; let us go and see."
440
 —
A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
We crept along on our hands and knees untfl we
were pretty close, and then looked up. Yes, it was
—
a man a dim great figure in armor, standing erect,
—
with both hands on the upper wire and, of course,
there was a smell of burning fiesh. Poor fellow,
dead as a door-nail, and never knew what hurt him.
—
He stood there like a statue ^no motion about him,
except that his plumes swished about a little in the
night wind. We rose up and looked in through the
bars of his visor, but couldn't make out whether we
knew him —
or not ^features too dim and shadowed.
We heard muffled sounds approaching, and we
sank down to the ground where we were. We
made out another knight vaguely; he was coming
very stealthily, and feeling his way. He was near
enough now for us to see him put out a hand, find
an upper wire, then bend and step tinder it and over
the lower one. Now he arrived at the first knight
and started slightly when he discovered him. He
—
stood a moment ^no doubt wondering why the other
one didn't move on; then he said, in a low voice,
—
"Why dreamest thou here, good Sir Mar " then
—
he laid his hand on the corpse's shoulder ^and just
uttered a little soft moan and sunk down dead.
—
Killed by a dead man, you see skilled by a dead,
friend, in fact. There was something awful about it.
These early birds came scattering along after each
other, about one every five minutes in our vicinity,
during half an hour. They brought no armor of
offense but their swords; as a rule, they carried the
sword ready in the hand, and put it forward and
found the wires with it. We would now and then
441
 MARK TWAIN
see a blue spark when the knight that caused it was
so far away as to be invisible to us; but we knew
what had happened, all the same; poor fellow, he
had touched a charged wire with his sword and been
elected. We had brief intervals of grim stillness,
interrupted with piteous regularity by the clash made
by the falling of an ironclad; and this sort of thing
was going on, right along, and was very creepy there
in the dark and lonesomeness.
We concluded to make a tour between the inner
fences. We elected to walk upright, for conveni-
ence' sake; we argued that if discerned, we should
be taken for friends rather than enemies, and in any
case we should be out of reach of swords, and these
gentry did not seem to have any spears along.
Well, it was a curious trip. Everywhere dead men
were lying outside the second fence ^not plainly —
visible, but stUl visible; and we counted fifteen of
—
those pathetic statues dead knights standing with
their hands on the upper wire.
One thing seemed to be sufficiently demonstrated:
our current was so tremendous that it killed before
the victim could cry out. Pretty soon we detected
a muffled and heavy sound, and next moment we
guessed what it was. It was a surprise in force
coming! I whispered Clarence to go and wake the
army, and notify it to wait in silence in the cave
for further orders. He was soon back, and we stood
by the inner fence and watched the silent lightning
do its awful work upon that swarming host. One
could make out but little of detail; but he could note
that a black mass was piling itself up beyond the
442
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
second fence. That swelling btdk was dead men I

Our camp was inclosed with a solid wall of the dead

—a bulwark, a breastwork, of corpses, you may say.
One terrible thing about this thing was the absence
of human voices; there were no cheers, no war-cries;
being intent upon a surprise, these men moved as
noiselessly as they could; and always when the front
rank was near enough to their goal to make it propel
for them to begin to get a shout ready, of course
they struck the fatal line and went down without
testifying.
I sent a current through the third fence now; and
almost immediately through the fourth and fifth, so
quickly were the gaps filled up. I believed the time
was come now for my climax; I believed that that
whole army was in our trap. Anyway, it was high
time to find out. So I touched a button and set fifty
electric suns aflame on the top of our precipice.
Land, what a sight! We were inclosed in three
walls of dead men All the other fences were pretty
!

nearly with the living, who were stealthily

filled
working their way forward through the wires. The
sudden glare paralyzed this host, petrified them, you
may say, with astonishment; there was just one
instant for me to utilize their immobility in, and I
didn't lose the chance. You see, in another instant
they would have recovered their faculties, then they'd
have burst into a cheer and made a rush, and my
wires would have gone down before it; but that lost
instant lost them their opportunity forever; while
even that slight fragment of time was still unspent,
I shot the current through all the fences and struck
443
 —

MARK TWAIN
the whole host dead in their tracks! There was a
groan you could hear! It voiced the death-pang of
eleven thousand men. It swelled out on the night
with awful pathos.
A glance showed that the rest of the enemy — ^per-

haps ten thousand strong —were between us and the

encircling ditch, and pressing forward to the assault.
Consequently we had them all! and had them past

help. Time for the last act of the tragedy. I fired

the three appointed revolver-shots —^which meant r

"Turn on the water!"

There was a sudden rush and roar, and in a minute
the moimtain brook was raging through the big
ditch and creating a river a hundred feet wide and
twenty-five deep.
"Stand to your guns, men! Open fire!"
The thirteen Gatlings began to vomit death into
the fated ten thousand. They halted, they stood
their ground a moment against that withering deluge
of fire, then they broke, faced about and swept
toward the ditch Hke chaff before a gale. A ftdl
fourth part of their force never reached the top of the
lofty embankment ; the three-fourths reached it and
plunged over— ^to death by drowning.

Within ten short minutes after we had opened fire,

armed resistance was totally annihilated, the cam-
paign was ended, we fifty-four were masters of Eng-
land Twenty-five thousand men lay dead arovmd us.
!

But how treacherous is fortune In a little while

!

—
say an hour ^happened a thing, by my own fault,
—
which ^but I have no heart to write that. Let the
record end here.
444
 CHAPTER XLIV
A POSTSCRIPT BY CLARENCE

CLARENCE, must write it for him. He pro-

I , posed that we two go out and see if any help
could be accorded the wounded. I was strenuous
against the project. I said that if there were many,
we could do but little for them; and it would not be
wise for us, to trust oiirselves among them, anyway.
But he could seldom be turned from a purpose once
formed; so we shut oflf the electric current from the
fences, took an escort along, climbed over the inclos-
ing ramparts of dead knights, and moved out upon
the field. The first wounded man who appealed for
help was sitting with his back against a dead com-
rade. When The Boss bent over him and spoke to
him, the man recognized him and stabbed him.
That knight was Sir Meliagraunce, as I found out by
tearing off his helmet. He will not ask for help any
more.
We carried to the cave and gave his
The Boss
wotmd, which was not very serious, the best care we
could. In this service we had the help of Merlin,
though we did not know it. He was disguised as a
woman, and appeared to be a simple old peasant
goodwife. In this disguise, with brown-stained face
and smooth-shaven, he had appeared a few days
445
 : —
MARK TWAIN
after The Boss was hurt, and oflEered to cook for us,
saying her people had gone off to join certain new
tamps which the enemy were forming, and that she
was starving. The Boss had been getting along very
weU, and had amused himself with finishing up his
record.
We were glad to have this woman, for we were
short-handed. We were in a trap, you see a trap —
of our own making. If we stayed where we were,
otu- dead would kUl us; if we moved out of our de-
fenses, we should no longer be invincible. We had
conquered; in turn we were conquered. The Boss
recognized this; we all recognized it. If we could
go to one of those new camps and patch up some kind
—
of terms with the enemy ^yes, but The Boss could
not go, and neither could I, for I was among the first
that were made sick by the poisonous air bred by
those dead thousands. Others were taken down, and
still others. To-morrow
To-morrow. It is here. And with it the end.
About midnight I awoke, and saw that hag making
curious passes in the air about The Boss's head and
face,and wondered what it meant. Everybody but
the dynamo-watch lay steeped in sleep; there was no
sound. The woman ceased from her mysterious fool-
ery, and started tiptoeing toward the door. I called
out:
"Stop! What have you been doing?"
She halted, and said with an accent of malicious
satisfaction
"Ye were conquerors; ye are conquered! These
others are perishing —^you also. Ye shall all die in
446
 A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
this place —every one —except him. He sleepeth
now —and shall sleep thirteen centimes. I am
Merlin!"
Then such a delirium of silly laughtet overtook him
that he reeled about like a drvmken man, and pres-
ently fetched up against one of our wires. His mouth
isspread open yet; apparently he is still laughing. I
suppose the face will retain that petrified laugh until
the corpse turns to dust.
The Boss has never stirred —sleeps
like a stone. If
he does not wake to-day we understand what
shall
kind of a sleep it is, and his body will then be borne
to a place in one of the remote recesses of the cave
where none will ever find it to desecrate it. As for
—
the rest of us ^well, it is agreed that if any one of us
ever escapes ahve from this place, he wiU write the
fact here, and loyally hide this Manuscript with The
Boss, our dear good chief, whose property it is, be he
alive or dead.

447

THE END OF MANUSCRIPT

 —

Final P. S. by M. T.

THE dawnThewasrain
aside.
come when
had ahnost
I laid the Manuscript
ceased, the world
was gray and sad, the exhausted storm was sighing
and sobbing itself to rest. I went to the stranger's
room, and listened at his door, which was slightly
ajar. I cotild hear his voice, and so I knocked.
There was no answer, but I still heard the voice. I
peeped in. The man lay on his back in bed, talking
brokenly but with spirit, and punctuating with his
arms, which he thrashed about, restlessly, as sick
people do in delirium. I slipped in softly and bent
over him. His mutterings and ejaculations went on.
I spoke —^merely a word, to call his attention. His
glassy eyes and his ashy face were an instantalight in
with pleasure, gratitude, gladness, welcome:
"Oh, Sandy, you are come at last ^how I have —
longed for you Sit by me
! —
do not leave me ^never —
leave me again, Sandy, never again. Where
your is

hand? — give it me, dear, let me hold it — —^now

^there
all is well, all is and I am happy again we
peace,
are happy again, isn't it so, Sandy ? You are so dim,
so vague, you are but a mist, a cloud, but you are
here, and that is blessedness sufficient; and I have
your hand; don't take it away ^it — is for only a little

while, I shall not require it long. . . , Was that the

448
 —
A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
child? . . . . She doesn't answer.
Hello-Central! . .

Asleep, perhaps? Bring her when she wakes, and

let me touch her hands, her face, her hair, and
tell her good-by. Sandy! . . . Yes, you are , . .

there. I lost myself a moment, and I thought you

were gone. Have I been sick long? It must be
. . .

so; it seems months to me. And such dreams! such

strange and awful dreams, Sandy! Dreams that
were as real as reality delirium, of course, but so —
real Why, I thought the king was dead, I thought
!

you were in Gaul and couldn't get home, I thought

there was a revolution; in the fantastic frenzy of
these dreams, I thought that Clarence and I and a
handful of my cadets fought and exterminated the
whole chivalry of England! But even that was not
the strangest. I seemed to be a creattu-e out of a
remote unborn age, centuries hence, and even that
was as real as the rest Yes, I seemed to have flown !

back out of that age into this of otus, and then for-
ward to it again, and was set down, a stranger and
forlorn in that strange England, with an abyss of
thirteen centviries yawning between me and you!
between me and my home and my friends between !

me and all that is dear to me, all that could make

life worth the living! It was awful awfuler than —
you can ever imagine, Sandy. Ah, watch by me,
—
Sandy stay by me every moment don't let me go
out of my mind again; death is nothing, let it come,
but not with those dreams, not with the torture of
those hideous dreams I cannot endure that again* —
. . Sandy? . .
."
.

He lay muttering incoherently some little time;

449
 "

MARK TWAIN
then for a time he lay silent, and apparently sinking
away toward Presently his fingers began to
death.
pick busily at the coverlet, and by that sign I knew
that his end was at hand. With the first suggestion
of the death-rattle in his throat he started up sHghtly,
and seemed to listen: then he said:
"A bugle? ... It is the king! The drawbridge,
there! Man the battlements! —turn out the—
He was getting up his last "effect"; but he never
finished it.

4SO

THE END