THERE never was such a country
for wandering liars; and they
were of both sexes. Hardly a
month went by without one of
these tramps arriving; and generally
loaded with a tale about some
princess or other wanting help
to get her out of some far-away
castle where she was held in
captivity by a lawless scoundrel,
usually a giant. Now you would
think that the first thing the
king would do after listening
to such a novelette from an entire
stranger, would be to ask for
credentials -- yes, and a pointer
or two as to locality of castle,
best route to it, and so on.
But nobody ever thought of so
simple and common-sense a thing
at that. No, everybody swallowed
these people's lies whole, and
never asked a question of any
sort or about anything. Well,
one day when I was not around,
one of these people came along
-- it was a she one, this time
-- and told a tale of the usual
pattern. Her mistress was a captive
in a vast and gloomy castle,
along with forty-four other young
and beautiful girls, pretty much
all of them princesses; they
had been languishing in that
cruel captivity for twenty-six
years; the masters of the castle
were three stupendous brothers,
each with four arms and one eye
-- the eye in the center of the
forehead, and as big as a fruit.
Sort of fruit not mentioned;
their usual slovenliness in statistics.
Would you believe it? The king
and the whole Round Table were
in raptures over this preposterous
opportunity for adventure. Every
knight of the Table jumped for
the chance, and begged for it;
but to their vexation and chagrin
the king conferred it upon me,
who had not asked for it at all.
By an effort, I contained my
joy when Clarence brought me
the news. But he -- he could
not contain his. His mouth gushed
delight and gratitude in a steady
discharge -- delight in my good
fortune, gratitude to the king
for this splendid mark of his
favor for me. He could keep neither
his legs nor his body still,
but pirouetted about the place
in an airy ecstasy of happiness.
On my side, I could have cursed
the kindness that conferred upon
me this benefaction, but I kept
my vexation under the surface
for policy's sake, and did what
I could to let on to be glad.
Indeed, I SAID I was glad. And
in a way it was true; I was as
glad as a person is when he is
scalped.
Well, one must make the best
of things, and not waste time
with useless fretting, but get
down to business and see what
can be done. In all lies there
is wheat among the chaff; I must
get at the wheat in this case:
so I sent for the girl and she
came. She was a comely enough
creature, and soft and modest,
but, if signs went for anything,
she didn't know as much as a
lady's watch. I said:
"My dear, have
you been questioned as to particulars?"
She said she hadn't.
"Well, I didn't
expect you had, but I thought
I would ask,
to make sure; it's the way I've
been raised. Now you mustn't
take it unkindly if I remind
you that as we don't know you,
we must go a little slow. You
may be all right, of course,
and we'll hope that you are;
but to take it for granted isn't
business. YOU understand that.
I'm obliged to ask you a few
questions; just answer up fair
and square, and don't be afraid.
Where do you live, when you are
at home?"
"In the land
of Moder, fair sir."
"Land of Moder.
I don't remember hearing of
it before. Parents
living?"
"As to that,
I know not if they be yet on
live, sith it
is many years that I have lain
shut up in the castle."
"Your name,
please?"
"I hight the
Demoiselle Alisande la Carteloise,
an it please you."
"Do you know
anybody here who can identify
you?"
"That were
not likely, fair lord, I being
come hither now
for the first time."
"Have you brought
any letters -- any documents
-- any proofs
that you are trustworthy and
truthful?"
"Of a surety,
no; and wherefore should I?
Have I not a tongue,
and cannot I say all that myself?"
"But YOUR saying
it, you know, and somebody
else's saying it,
is different."
"Different?
How might that be? I fear me
I do not understand."
"Don't UNDERSTAND?
Land of -- why, you see --
you see --
why, great Scott, can't you understand
a little thing like that? Can't
you understand the difference
between your -- WHY do you look
so innocent and idiotic!"
"I? In truth
I know not, but an it were
the will of God."
"Yes, yes,
I reckon that's about the size
of it. Don't mind
my seeming excited; I'm not.
Let us change the subject. Now
as to this castle, with fortyfive
princesses in it, and three ogres
at the head of it, tell me --
where is this harem?"
"Harem?"
"The CASTLE,
you understand; where is the
castle?"
"Oh, as to
that, it is great, and strong,
and well beseen,
and lieth in a far country. Yes,
it is many leagues."
"HOW many?"
"Ah, fair sir,
it were woundily hard to tell,
they are so many,
and do so lap the one upon the
other, and being made all in
the same image and tincted with
the same color, one may not know
the one league from its fellow,
nor how to count them except
they be taken apart, and ye wit
well it were God's work to do
that, being not within man's
capacity; for ye will note --"
"Hold on, hold
on, never mind about the distance;
WHEREABOUTS
does the castle lie? What's the
direction from here?"
"Ah, please
you sir, it hath no direction
from here; by reason
that the road lieth not straight,
but turneth evermore; wherefore
the direction of its place abideth
not, but is some time under the
one sky and anon under another,
whereso if ye be minded that
it is in the east, and wend thitherward,
ye shall observe that the way
of the road doth yet again turn
upon itself by the space of half
a circle, and this marvel happing
again and yet again and still
again, it will grieve you that
you had thought by vanities of
the mind to thwart and bring
to naught the will of Him that
giveth not a castle a direction
from a place except it pleaseth
Him, and if it please Him not,
will the rather that even all
castles and all directions thereunto
vanish out of the earth, leaving
the places wherein they tarried
desolate and vacant, so warning
His creatures that where He will
He will, and where He will not
He --"
"Oh, that's
all right, that's all right,
give us a rest; never
mind about the direction, HANG
the direction -- I beg pardon,
I beg a thousand pardons, I am
not well to-day; pay no attention
when I soliloquize, it is an
old habit, an old, bad habit,
and hard to get rid of when one's
digestion is all disordered with
eating food that was raised forever
and ever before he was born;
good land! a man can't keep his
functions regular on spring chickens
thirteen hundred years old. But
come -- never mind about that;
let's -- have you got such a
thing as a map of that region
about you? Now a good map --"
"Is it peradventure
that manner of thing which
of late the unbelievers
have brought from over the great
seas, which, being boiled in
oil, and an onion and salt added
thereto, doth --"
"What, a map?
What are you talking about?
Don't you know
what a map is? There, there,
never mind, don't explain, I
hate explanations; they fog a
thing up so that you can't tell
anything about it. Run along,
dear; good-day; show her the
way, Clarence."
Oh, well, it was reasonably
plain, now, why these donkeys
didn't prospect these liars for
details. It may be that this
girl had a fact in her somewhere,
but I don't believe you could
have sluiced it out with a hydraulic;
nor got it with the earlier forms
of blasting, even; it was a case
for dynamite. Why, she was a
perfect ass; and yet the king
and his knights had listened
to her as if she had been a leaf
out of the gospel. It kind of
sizes up the whole party. And
think of the simple ways of this
court: this wandering wench hadn't
any more trouble to get access
to the king in his palace than
she would have had to get into
the poorhouse in my day and country.
In fact, he was glad to see her,
glad to hear her tale; with that
adventure of hers to offer, she
was as welcome as a corpse is
to a coroner.
Just as I was ending-up these
reflections, Clarence came back.
I remarked upon the barren result
of my efforts with the girl;
hadn't got hold of a single point
that could help me to find the
castle. The youth looked a little
surprised, or puzzled, or something,
and intimated that he had been
wondering to himself what I had
wanted to ask the girl all those
questions for.
"Why, great guns," I said, "don't
I want to find the castle? And
how else would I go about it?"
"La, sweet
your worship, one may lightly
answer that, I ween.
She will go with thee. They always
do. She will ride with thee."
"Ride with
me? Nonsense!"
"But of a truth
she will. She will ride with
thee. Thou shalt
see."
"What? She
browse around the hills and
scour the woods with
me -- alone -- and I as good
as engaged to be married? Why,
it's scandalous. Think how it
would look."
My, the dear
face that rose before me! The
boy was eager
to know all about this tender
matter. I swore him to secresy
and then whispered her name -- "Puss
Flanagan." He looked disappointed,
and said he didn't remember the
countess. How natural it was
for the little courtier to give
her a rank. He asked me where
she lived.
"In East Har--" I came to myself
and stopped, a little confused;
then I said, "Never mind, now;
I'll tell you some time."
And might he see her? Would
I let him see her some day?
It was but a little thing to
promise -- thirteen hundred years
or so -- and he so eager; so
I said Yes. But I sighed; I couldn't
help it. And yet there was no
sense in sighing, for she wasn't
born yet. But that is the way
we are made: we don't reason,
where we feel; we just feel.
My expedition was all the talk
that day and that night, and
the boys were very good to me,
and made much of me, and seemed
to have forgotten their vexation
and disappointment, and come
to be as anxious for me to hive
those ogres and set those ripe
old virgins loose as if it were
themselves that had the contract.
Well, they WERE good children
-- but just children, that is
all. And they gave me no end
of points about how to scout
for giants, and how to scoop
them in; and they told me all
sorts of charms against enchantments,
and gave me salves and other
rubbish to put on my wounds.
But it never occurred to one
of them to reflect that if I
was such a wonderful necromancer
as I was pretending to be, I
ought not to need salves or instructions,
or charms against enchantments,
and, least of all, arms and armor,
on a foray of any kind -- even
against fire-spouting dragons,
and devils hot from perdition,
let alone such poor adversaries
as these I was after, these commonplace
ogres of the back settlements.
I was to have an early breakfast,
and start at dawn, for that was
the usual way; but I had the
demon's own time with my armor,
and this delayed me a little.
It is troublesome to get into,
and there is so much detail.
First you wrap a layer or two
of blanket around your body,
for a sort of cushion and to
keep off the cold iron; then
you put on your sleeves and shirt
of chain mail -- these are made
of small steel links woven together,
and they form a fabric so flexible
that if you toss your shirt onto
the floor, it slumps into a pile
like a peck of wet fish-net;
it is very heavy and is nearly
the uncomfortablest material
in the world for a night shirt,
yet plenty used it for that --
tax collectors, and reformers,
and one-horse kings with a defective
title, and those sorts of people;
then you put on your shoes --
flat-boats roofed over with interleaving
bands of steel -- and screw your
clumsy spurs into the heels.
Next you buckle your greaves
on your legs, and your cuisses
on your thighs; then come your
backplate and your breastplate,
and you begin to feel crowded;
then you hitch onto the breastplate
the half-petticoat of broad overlapping
bands of steel which hangs down
in front but is scolloped out
behind so you can sit down, and
isn't any real improvement on
an inverted coal scuttle, either
for looks or for wear, or to
wipe your hands on; next you
belt on your sword; then you
put your stove-pipe joints onto
your arms, your iron gauntlets
onto your hands, your iron rat-trap
onto your head, with a rag of
steel web hitched onto it to
hang over the back of your neck
-- and there you are, snug as
a candle in a candle-mould. This
is no time to dance. Well, a
man that is packed away like
that is a nut that isn't worth
the cracking, there is so little
of the meat, when you get down
to it, by comparison with the
shell.
The boys helped me, or I never
could have got in. Just as we
finished, Sir Bedivere happened
in, and I saw that as like as
not I hadn't chosen the most
convenient outfit for a long
trip. How stately he looked;
and tall and broad and grand.
He had on his head a conical
steel casque that only came down
to his ears, and for visor had
only a narrow steel bar that
extended down to his upper lip
and protected his nose; and all
the rest of him, from neck to
heel, was flexible chain mail,
trousers and all. But pretty
much all of him was hidden under
his outside garment, which of
course was of chain mail, as
I said, and hung straight from
his shoulders to his ankles;
and from his middle to the bottom,
both before and behind, was divided,
so that he could ride and let
the skirts hang down on each
side. He was going grailing,
and it was just the outfit for
it, too. I would have given a
good deal for that ulster, but
it was too late now to be fooling
around. The sun was just up,
the king and the court were all
on hand to see me off and wish
me luck; so it wouldn't be etiquette
for me to tarry. You don't get
on your horse yourself; no, if
you tried it you would get disappointed.
They carry you out, just as they
carry a sun-struck man to the
drug store, and put you on, and
help get you to rights, and fix
your feet in the stirrups; and
all the while you do feel so
strange and stuffy and like somebody
else -- like somebody that has
been married on a sudden, or
struck by lightning, or something
like that, and hasn't quite fetched
around yet, and is sort of numb,
and can't just get his bearings.
Then they stood up the mast they
called a spear, in its socket
by my left foot, and I gripped
it with my hand; lastly they
hung my shield around my neck,
and I was all complete and ready
to up anchor and get to sea.
Everybody was as good to me as
they could be, and a maid of
honor gave me the stirrup-cup
her own self. There was nothing
more to do now, but for that
damsel to get up behind me on
a pillion, which she did, and
put an arm or so around me to
hold on.
And so we started, and everybody
gave us a goodbye and waved their
handkerchiefs or helmets. And
everybody we met, going down
the hill and through the village
was respectful to us, except
some shabby little boys on the
outskirts. They said:
"Oh, what a guy!" And
hove clods at us.
In my experience
boys are the same in all ages.
They don't
respect anything, they don't
care for anything or anybody.
They say "Go up, baldhead" to
the prophet going his unoffending
way in the gray of antiquity;
they sass me in the holy gloom
of the Middle Ages; and I had
seen them act the same way in
Buchanan's administration; I
remember, because I was there
and helped. The prophet had his
bears and settled with his boys;
and I wanted to get down and
settle with mine, but it wouldn't
answer, because I couldn't have
got up again. I hate a country
without a derrick. |