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A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 66 |
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 disguise 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 lowliest and poorest ... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 67 |
“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 an... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 68 |
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; as showy and foolish as the sort of thing an Indian... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 69 |
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 matters to myself. The third day's reports showed that if he kept up his gait he would arrive by four in the afternoon. There... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 70 |
CHAPTER XXV
A COMPETITIVE EXAMINATION
When the king traveled for change of air, or made 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 p... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 71 |
It reminded me of something I had read in my youth about the ingenious way in which the aldermen 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 c... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 72 |
The girl's case seemed strong to me; the bishop's case was just as strong. I did not see how the king was going to get out of this hole. But he got out. I append his decision:
“Truly I find small difficulty here, the matter being even a child's affair for simpleness. An the young bride had conveyed notice, as in duty... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 73 |
King Arthur had hurried up the army business altogether beyond my calculations. I had not supposed he would move in the matter while I was away; and so I had not mapped out a scheme for determining the merits of officers; I had only remarked that it would be wise to submit every candidate to a sharp and searching exam... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 74 |
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 young nobles was called up now.... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 75 |
Try to conceive of this mollusk gravely applying for an official position, of any kind under the sun! Why, he had all the earmarks of a typewriter copyist, if you leave out the disposition to contribute uninvited emendations of your grammar and punctuation. It was unaccountable that he didn't attempt a little help of ... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 76 |
I was almost ashamed to look my poor disappointed 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 Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 77 |
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 afire with the novelty of the thing in a minute, and was bound to take a chance in the adventure himself--nothing should stop him--he would drop everything and g... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 78 | 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 representing the occurrence--a picture which you would think it dangerous for a sick person to approach; whereas,... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 79 |
I dropped a nickel out of the window and got my paper; the Adam-newsboy of the world went around the corner to get my change; is around the corner 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 a... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 80 |
LOCAL SMOKE AND CINDERS.
Sir Launcelot met up with old King Agrivance 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 mext month on a search f8r Sir Sagramour le Desirous. It is in com-... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 81 |
Of course it was good enough journalism for a 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... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 82 |
About bedtime I took the king to my private 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; t... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 83 |
“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 wee... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 84 |
CHAPTER XXVIII
DRILLING THE KING
On the morning of the fourth day, when it was just sunrise, and we had been tramping an hour 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 ve... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 85 |
CHAPTER XXIX
THE SMALLPOX HUT
When we arrived at that hut at mid-afternoon, we saw no signs of life about it. The field near by had been denuded of its crop some time before, and had a skinned look, so exhaustively had it been harvested and gleaned. Fences, sheds, everything had a ruined look, and were eloquent of p... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 86 | 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 bearing was as serenely brave... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 87 | 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 chastening 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, fe... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 88 |
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 department by and by. The priests opposed both my fire and life insurance, on the ground that it was an insolent attem... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 89 | 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 th... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 90 | It reminded me of a time 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 po... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 91 |
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 ne... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 92 | A man who hasn't had much experience, and doesn't think, is apt to measure 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 i... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 93 |
I got to know several master mechanics, but about the most interesting fellow 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 ver... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 94 |
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 running across pathetic reminders of it, in the persons of shunned and tearful and houseless remnants of families whose homes had been taken from them and their parents butchere... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 95 |
The king had hardly missed us when we got back at nightfall. He had early dropped again into his dream of a grand invasion of Gaul with the whole strength of his kingdom at his back, and the afternoon had slipped away without his ever coming to himself again.
CHAPTER XXXII
DOWLEY'S HUMILIATION
Well, when that cargo... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 96 |
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... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 97 |
“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 over my soul and alternate waves of terror and admiration surged over Marco's:
2 pounds salt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200 8... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 98 |
CHAPTER XXXIII
SIXTH CENTURY POLITICAL ECONOMY
|
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 99 |
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 country 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 you... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 100 | At a first glance, things appeared to be exceeding prosperous in this little tributary kingdom--whose lord was King Bagdemagus--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 a... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 101 |
Well, I was smarting under a sense of defeat. Undeserved defeat, but what of that? That didn't soften the smart any. And to think of the circumstances! 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 clouds of any poli... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 102 |
“Boys, there's a good many curious things about law, and custom, and usage, and all that sort of thing, when you come to look at it; yes, and about the drift and progress of human opinion and movement, too. There are written laws--they perish; but there are also unwritten laws--_they_ are eternal. Take the unwritten l... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 103 |
“Sometimes the courts, sometimes the town council; 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... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 104 |
CHAPTER XXXIV
THE YANKEE AND THE KING SOLD AS SLAVES
Well, what had I better do? Nothing in a hurry, sure. I must get up a diversion; anything 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 h... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 105 |
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 for a fight. He ... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 106 |
Then he descended, barking and coughing, and I followed. 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 th... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 107 |
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 hundreds of freemen who could not prove that they were freemen had been sold into lifelong slavery without th... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 108 |
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 ... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 109 |
Now and then we had an adventure. One night we were overtaken by a snow-storm while still a mile from the village we were making for. Almost 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 desperately, for he saw ruin bef... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 110 |
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 van was a cart with a coffin in it, and on the coffin sat a comely young girl of about eighteen suckling a baby, which she squeezed to her... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 111 |
London--to a slave--was a sufficiently interesting place. It was merely a great big village; and mainly mud and thatch. The streets were muddy, crooked, unpaved. The populace was an ever flocking and drifting swarm of rags, and splendors, of nodding plumes and shining armor. The king had a palace there; he saw the out... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 112 | 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; and what would happen if they ja... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 113 | 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.
I picked out a man humble enough in life to condescend to talk with one so shabby as I, and got his account of the matter.
“There were sixteen s... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 114 |
I took the address of that prison for future reference 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 concealed my... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 115 |
“Save your wind; if you open your mouth you are dead, sure. Tackle your instrument. 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.”
“What--you?”
“Yes... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 116 |
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, without the knights. But I must proceed cautiously, for it was a risky business. I must get into sumptuous raiment, and it w... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 117 |
CHAPTER XXXVIII
SIR LAUNCELOT AND KNIGHTS TO THE RESCUE
Nearing four in the afternoon. The scene was just outside the walls of London. A cool, comfortable, superb day, with a 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 devil... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 118 |
Home again, at Camelot. A morning or two later I found the paper, damp from the press, by my plate at the breakfast table. I turned to the advertising columns, knowing I should find something of personal interest to me there. It was this:
DE PAR LE ROI.
Know that the great lord and illus- trious Knight, SIR SAGRAMOR... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 119 | Pie for sale on the grounds, and rocks to crack it with; and ciRcus-lemonade—three drops of lime juice to a barrel of water.
N.B. This is the first tournament under the new law, whidh allow each combatant to use any weapon he may pre- fer. You may want to make a note of that.
Up to the day set, there was no talk in a... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 120 |
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 16th. The mammoth grand-stand was clothed in flags, streamers, and rich tapestries, and packed with several acres of small-fry tributary kings, their suites, and the British aristocracy; with o... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 121 |
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 against me--knight-errantry is dead.” Now imagine my astonishment--and everybody else's, too--to hear the peculiar bugle-call which announces that another competitor is ... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 122 |
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 man and I detected the waverin... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 123 |
Consider the three years sped. Now look around on England. A happy and prosperous country, 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 volume of gray-headed jokes which I... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 124 | 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, darling, speak! What is it?”
Her head fell limp upon my bo... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 125 |
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 occupied 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 busines... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 126 | 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 eit... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 127 |
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... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 128 |
“HELLO-CENTRAL!”
I didn't laugh--I am always thankful for that--but 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 first time she heard that form of salute used at the telephone she was surprised, and not pleased; but ... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 129 |
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. It was Sunday; yet at Canterbury the streets were empty; strangest of all, there was not even a priest in sight,... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 130 |
CHAPTER XLII
WAR!
I found Clarence alone in his quarters, drowned 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 rushed for me eagerly, saying:
“Oh, it's worth a billion milrays to look u... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 131 |
“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 h... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 132 |
“That is a good piece of war correspondence, Clarence; you are a first-rate newspaper man. Well--is the king all right? Did he get well?”
“Poor soul, 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.”
“Wha... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 133 | As a next move, I paid a private visit to that old cave of Merlin's--not the small 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 t... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 134 |
“PROCLAMATION
“BE IT KNOWN UNTO ALL. Whereas the king having died and left no heir, it becomes my duty to continue the executive authority vested in 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 reverted to its o... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 135 |
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 Proclamation--then it's their innings. Now have the thing set up and printed and posted, right off; that is, give the order; then, if yo... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 136 |
I had spies out every night, of course, to get news. Every report made things look more and more impressive. The hosts were gathering, gathering; 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. All the nobili... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 137 |
The big day arrived on time. At dawn the sentry on watch in the corral came into the cave and reported 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 detai... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 138 | I therefore issued a congratulatory proclamation to my army in these words:
SOLDIERS, CHAMPIONS OF 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. T... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 139 |
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 ... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 140 |
Then, to business. I tested the electric signals from the gatling platform to the cave, and made sure that they were all 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... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 141 | 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 th... |
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court | Mark Twain | 142 |
FINAL P.S. BY M.T.
The dawn was come when I laid the Manuscript aside. The rain had almost 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 could hear his voice, and so I knocked. There w... |
A Crystal Age | W. H. Hudson | 0 | Produced by Eric Eldred, David Garcia and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
A CRYSTAL AGE
BY W. H. HUDSON
PREFACE
_Romances of the future, however fantastic they may be, have for most of us a perennial if mild interest, since they are born of a very common feeling--a sense of dissatisfaction with the existi... |
A Crystal Age | W. H. Hudson | 1 |
_Alas that in this case the wish cannot induce belief! For now I remember another thing which Nature said--that earthly excellence can come in no way but one, and the ending of passion and strife is the beginning of decay. It is indeed a hard saying, and the hardest lesson we can learn of her without losing love and b... |
A Crystal Age | W. H. Hudson | 2 | In vain I scanned the horizon, waiting impatiently to see the distant puff of white steam from some passing engine. This troubled me not a little, for I had no idea that I had drifted so far from civilization in my search for specimens, or whatever it was that brought me to this pretty, primitive wilderness. Not quite ... |
A Crystal Age | W. H. Hudson | 3 |
"Dolt that I am," I suddenly exclaimed, "to be fooling away my time when the nearest railway station or hotel is perhaps twenty miles away."
I hurried on, but when I got to the end of the grove, on the green sward near some laurel and juniper bushes, I came on an excavation apparently just made, the loose earth which... |
A Crystal Age | W. H. Hudson | 4 |
Chapter 2
The thrilling, pathetic tone in which these words were uttered affected me not a little; and when the ceremony was over I continued staring vacantly at the speaker, ignorant of the fact that the beautiful young girl had her wide-open, startled eyes fixed on the bush which, I vainly imagined, concealed me fr... |
A Crystal Age | W. H. Hudson | 5 | I fell down into a ravine, and a great heap of earth and stones fell on and stunned me, and I do not know how long I lay there before I recovered my senses. I daresay I am trespassing, but I am a perfect stranger here, and quite lost, and--and perhaps a little confused after my fall, and perhaps you will kindly tell me... |
A Crystal Age | W. H. Hudson | 6 |
"What do I mean? Why, a city, I take it, is nothing more than a collection or congeries of houses--hundreds and thousands, or hundreds _of_ thousands of houses, all built close together, where one can live very comfortably for years without seeing a blade of grass."
"I am afraid," he returned, "that the accident you ... |
A Crystal Age | W. H. Hudson | 7 |
At the end our way to the house was over a green turf, among great trees as in a park; and as there was no road or path, the first sight of the building seen near, when we emerged from the trees, came as a surprise. There were no gardens, lawns, inclosures or hedges near it, nor cultivation of any kind. It was like a ... |
A Crystal Age | W. H. Hudson | 8 | Doubtless in falling your head was struck and injured by a stone. Let us hope that you will soon recover possession of your memory and other faculties. And now let us repair to the eating-room, for it is best to refresh the body first, and the mind afterwards."
Chapter 3
We ascended the steps, and passing through the... |
A Crystal Age | W. H. Hudson | 9 | Below, with loosened dark golden-red hair and amber-colored garments fluttering in the wind, stood a graceful female figure on the summit of a gray rock; over the rock, and as high as her knees, slanted the thin branches of some mountain shrub, the strong wind even now stripping them of their remaining yellow and russe... |
A Crystal Age | W. H. Hudson | 10 |
Chapter 4
We came to a large portico-like place open on three sides to the air, the roof being supported by slender columns. We were now on the opposite side of the house and looked upon the river, which was not more than a couple of hundred yards from the terrace or platform on which it stood. The ground here sloped... |
A Crystal Age | W. H. Hudson | 11 |
I am not particular about what I eat, as with me good digestion waits on appetite, and so long as I get a bellyful--to use a good old English word--I am satisfied. On this particular occasion, with or without a pretty girl at the table, I could have consumed a haggis--that greatest abomination ever invented by flesh-e... |
A Crystal Age | W. H. Hudson | 12 | These pretty little pensioners systematically avoided my neighborhood, although I tempted them with crumbs and fruit; only one flew onto my table, but had no sooner done so than it darted away again, and out of the room, as if greatly alarmed. I caught the pretty girl's eye just then, and having finished eating, and be... |
A Crystal Age | W. H. Hudson | 13 |
This was from the girl Yoletta. I stared at her, surprised at her unseasonable levity; but the only effect of my doing so was a general explosion, men and women joining in such a tempest of merriment that one might have imagined they had just heard the most wonderful joke ever invented since man acquired the sense of ... |
A Crystal Age | W. H. Hudson | 14 |
Chapter 5
When he was gone, and Yoletta had followed, leaving some of the others still studying those wretched sovereigns, I sat down again and rested my chin on my hand; for I was now thinking--deeply: thinking on the terms of the agreement. "I daresay I have succeeded in making a precious ass of myself," was the me... |
A Crystal Age | W. H. Hudson | 15 |
"There is no melody in our hearts this evening, my children," he said. "When another day has passed over us it will perhaps be different. To-night the voice so recently stilled in death forever would be too painfully missed by all of us."
Some one then rose and brought a tall wax taper and placed it near him. The fla... |
A Crystal Age | W. H. Hudson | 16 |
"Of the human race only a small remnant survived, these being men of an humble mind, who had lived apart and unknown to their fellows; and after long centuries they went forth into the wilderness of earth and repeopled it; but nowhere did they find any trace or record of those that had passed away; for earth had cover... |
A Crystal Age | W. H. Hudson | 17 |
"These things are written for the refreshment and delight of those who may no longer journey into distant lands; and they are in the library of the house in the seven thousand volumes of the Houses of the World which our pilgrims have visited in past ages. For once in a lifetime is it ordained that a man shall leave h... |
A Crystal Age | W. H. Hudson | 18 |
Chapter 6
The reading went on, not of course "for ever," like that harvest melody he spoke of, but for a considerable time. The words, I concluded, were for the initiated, and not for me, and after a while I gave up trying to make out what it was all about. Those last expressions I have quoted about the "august Mothe... |
A Crystal Age | W. H. Hudson | 19 | She was certainly very beautiful, with a far more mature and perhaps a nobler beauty than Yoletta's, her age being about twenty-seven or twenty-eight; but the divine charm in the young girl's face could, for me, exist in no other.
Presently she opened the conversation by asking me if I disliked being alone.
"Well, no... |
A Crystal Age | W. H. Hudson | 20 |
Chapter 7
The moment of retiring, to which I had been looking forward with considerable interest as one likely to bring fresh surprises, arrived at last: it brought only extreme discomfort. I was conducted (without a flat candlestick) along an obscure passage; then, at right angles with the first, a second broader, l... |
A Crystal Age | W. H. Hudson | 21 | It is clear that I was not quite in my right mind when I made the agreement, and I am therefore not morally bound to observe it. What! be a field laborer, a hewer of wood and drawer of water, and sleep on a miserable straw mat in an open porch, with wolves for visitors at all hours of the night, and all for a few barba... |
A Crystal Age | W. H. Hudson | 22 |
Chapter 8
Fortunately I woke early next morning, for I was now a member of an early-rising family, and anxious to conform to rules. On going to the door I found, to my inexpressible disgust, that I might easily have closed it in the way I had seen the other door closed, by simply pulling a sliding panel. There was ve... |
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