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Mark
Twain - A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
Chapter 19
KNIGHT-ERRANTRY AS A TRADE
SANDY and I were on the road again, next morning, bright and early.
It was so good to open up one's lungs and take in whole luscious barrels-ful
of the blessed God's untainted, dew-fashioned, woodland-scented air
once more, after suffocating body and mind for two days and nights
in the moral and physical stenches of that intolerable old buzzard-roost!
mean, for me: of course the place was all right and agreeable enough
for Sandy, for she had been used to high life all her days.
Poor girl, her jaws had had a wearisome rest now for a while, and
I was expecting to get the consequences. I was right; but she had
stood by me most helpfully in the castle, and had mightily supported
and reinforced me with gigantic foolishnesses which were worth more
for the occasion than wisdoms double their size; so I thought she
had earned a right to work her mill for a while, if she wanted to,
and I felt not a pang when she started it up:
"Now turn we unto Sir Marhaus that rode with the damsel of
thirty winter of age southward -- "
"Are you going to see if you can work up another half-stretch
on the trail of the cowboys, Sandy?"
"Even so, fair my lord."
"Go ahead, then. I won't interrupt this time, if I can help
it. Begin over again; start fair, and shake out all your reefs, and
I will load my pipe and give good attention."
"Now turn we unto Sir Marhaus that rode with the damsel of
thirty winter of age southward. And so they came into a deep forest,
and by fortune they were nighted, and rode along in a deep way, and
at the last they came into a courtelage where abode the duke of South
Marches, and there they asked harbour. And on the morn the duke sent
unto Sir Marhaus, and bad him make him ready. And so Sir Marhaus arose
and armed him, and there was a mass sung afore him, and he brake his
fast, and so mounted on horseback in the court of the castle, there
they should do the battle. So there was the duke already on horseback,
clean armed, and his six sons by him, and every each had a spear in
his hand, and so they encountered, whereas the duke and his two sons
brake their spears upon him, but Sir Marhaus held up his spear and
touched none of them. Then came the four sons by couples, and two
of them brake their spears, and so did the other two. And all this
while Sir Marhaus touched them not. Then Sir Marhaus ran to the duke,
and smote him with his spear that horse and man fell to the earth.
And so he served his sons. And then Sir Marhaus alight down, and bad
the duke yield him or else he would slay him. And then some of his
sons recovered, and would have set upon Sir Marhaus. Then Sir Marhaus
said to the duke, Cease thy sons, or else I will do the uttermost
to you all. When the duke saw he might not escape the death, he cried
to his sons, and charged them to yield
'Then Sir Marhaus ran to the duke, and smote him with his spear'
them to Sir Marhaus. And they kneeled all down and put the pommels
of their swords to the knight, and so he received them. And then they
holp up their father, and so by their common assent promised unto
Sir Marhaus never to be foes unto King Arthur, and thereupon at Whitsuntide
after, to come he and his sons, and put them in the king's grace.
The story is borrowed, language and all, from the Morte d'Arthur.
-- M.T.
"Even so standeth the history, fair Sir Boss. Now ye shall
wit that that very duke and his six sons are they whom but few days
past you also did overcome and send to Arthur's court!"
"Why, Sandy, you can't mean it!"
"An I speak not sooth, let it be the worse for me."
"Well, well, well, -- now who would ever have thought it? One
whole duke and six dukelets; why, Sandy, it was an elegant haul. Knight-errantry
is a most chuckle-headed trade, and it is tedious hard work, too,
but I begin to see that there is money in it, after all, if you have
luck. Not that I would ever engage in it as a business, for I wouldn't.
No sound and legitimate business can be established on a basis of
speculation. A successful whirl in the knight-errantry line -- now
what is it when you blow away the nonsense and come down to the cold
facts? It's just a corner in pork, that's all, and you can't make
anything else out of it. You're rich -- yes, -- suddenly rich -- for
about a day, maybe a week; then somebody corners the market on you,
and down goes your bucket-shop; ain't that so, Sandy?"
"Whethersoever it be that my mind miscarrieth, bewraying simple
language in such sort that the words do seem to come endlong and overthwart
-- "
"There's no use in beating about the bush and trying to get
around it that way, Sandy, it's so, just as I say. I know it's so.
And, moreover, when you come right down to the bedrock, knight-errantry
is worse than pork; for whatever happens, the pork's left, and so
somebody's benefited anyway; but when the market breaks, in a knight-errantry
whirl, and every knight in the pool passes in his checks, what have
you got for assets? Just a rubbish-pile of battered corpses and a
barrel or two of busted hardware. Can you call those assets? Give
me pork, every time. Am I right?"
"Ah, peradventure my head being distraught by the manifold
matters whereunto the confusions of these but late adventured haps
and fortunings whereby not I alone nor you alone, but every each of
us, meseemeth -- "
"No, it's not your head, Sandy. Your head's all right, as far
as it goes, but you don't know business; that's where the trouble
is. It unfits you to argue about business, and you're wrong to be
always trying. However, that aside, it was a good haul, anyway, and
will breed a handsome crop of reputation in Arthur's court. And speaking
of the cowboys, what a curious country this is for women and men that
never get old. Now there's Morgan le Fay, as fresh and young as a
Vassar pullet, to all appearances, and here is this old duke of the
South Marches still slashing away with sword and lance at his time
of life, after raising such a family as he has raised. As I understand
it, Sir Gawaine killed seven of his sons, and still he had six left
for Sir Marhaus and me to take into camp. And then there was that
damsel of sixty winter of age still excursioning around in her frosty
bloom -- How old are you, Sandy?"
It was the first time I ever struck a still place in her. The mill
had shut down for repairs, or something.
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