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Mark
Twain - A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
Chapter 14
"DEFEND THEE, LORD"
I PAID three pennies for my breakfast, and a most 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 I hadn't
got the 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 our own mint, and that would have pleased
me; and them, too, not less.
I had adopted the American values exclusively. In a week or two
now, cents, nickels, dimes, quarters, and half-dollars, and also a
trifle of gold, would be trickling in thin but steady streams all
through the commercial veins of the kingdom, and I looked to see this
new blood freshen up 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 flint
and steel; and as soon as 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 backwards and struck the ground with a
dull 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 distance. 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 if all who felt no enmity toward me
would 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 smoke a couple of pipes out before they would
let me go. Still the delay was not wholly unproductive, for it took
all that time to get Sandy thoroughly wonted to the new thing, she
being so close to it, you know. It plugged up her conversation mill,
too, for a considerable 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 afternoon. We were crossing a vast meadow
by way of short-cut, and I was musing absently, hearing nothing, seeing
nothing, when Sandy suddenly interrupted a remark which she had begun
that morning, with the cry:
"Defend thee, lord! -- peril of life is toward!"
And she slipped down from the horse and ran a little way and stood.
I looked up and saw, far off in the shade of a tree, half a dozen
armed knights and their squires; and straightway there was bustle
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 banish oppression from this land and restore to all its
people their stolen rights and manhood without disobliging 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 body, they came with a whirr 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. It was a handsome sight,
They came in a body, they came with a whirr a beautiful sight --
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 miscarried, 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 disabled
those knights; they were not riding on, because 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 trusting simplicity,
so I said it was a mistake; that 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, and still again, until 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 rufflers, 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 sure."
"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 would not hold them blamable. They fear to come."
"Well, then, suppose I go to them instead, and -- "
"Ah, wit ye well they would not abide your coming. 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 people I was The Boss, it hit them where
they lived: "smote them sore with fear and dread" was her
word; and then they were ready to put up with anything she might require.
So she swore them to appear at Arthur's court within two days and
yield them, with horse and harness, and be my knights henceforth,
and subject to my command. How much better she managed that thing
than I should have done it myself! She was a daisy.
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